First off, I'd like to apologize for my absence through the past week. On Friday and Saturday, I was dancing in my school's Variety Show. Throughout the rest of the week, I was playing catch-up on homework.
This weekend I was in Detroit to visit my cousins, two of whom are twin baby girls, one month old. There is also a two-year-old girl and a fifth grade boy. Visiting the babies made me think about childhood, parenthood, and everything in between.
My childhood was very different from the childhoods that my cousins will have. I was raised at the turn of the century, and my family didn't have a very good computer until I was about 8. When I was a kid, the most time I spent on a computer was an occasional five minutes typing random letters into blank word documents. We had a 'dinosaur' computer, and by the time I was old enough to even think about using a computer, it could no longer use the internet. I spent more time eating Cheerios in coffeeshops than on any sort of electronics and I spent most of my time either reading or making a mess. My two-year-old cousin watches at least one episode of Bubble Guppies a day, and knows how to navigate most of the apps on the family iPad. She has every song from Frozen memorized. (So do I. Your point?) I watched the Winnie the Pooh movie, the Lion King, Finding Nemo, or Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron once a week on VHS tapes. She watches recorded Disney movies from the movie channel.
Funny thing is, she still enjoys the same pure actions and emotions I used to. She finds it hilarious to throw herself off of the couch, roll around on the floor, stomp her feet in sneakers, dance, fall on her butt and laugh uproariously. She also shoves her head into people's laps when she wants attention. She pulls on the refrigerator handle, though it is locked against her. She hangs upside down off the couch. She is just as amazingly happy and content as I was at that age. It amazes me that our childhoods can be so similar and so different.
I love my parents, and my aunt and uncle, but they are raising their kids in very different ways. I spent most of my time in front of books, or other learning toys. I was read to every night and spent more time wandering around in grown-up shoes than in front of a screen. My cousin sits in front of the TV a lot, and can sing any song from her movies and shows. She dances in front of a screen, instead of on a lawn. I know that we are growing, have grown up in different ages, but it is shocking that there is so much of a difference between our childhoods when we were only born 13 years apart. It shocks me that we can be so different and yet so similar. I feel like neither childhood is necessarily bad, but there is something more to say for mine, if only the nostalgia factor.
Childhoods have changed drastically with only a decade. I feel like there should be more constancy in the world, but what we get is what we have, and I'm okay with this life. Just remember that the old ways should not be entirely eclipsed and we should be good for a while.
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Chorus of the Day!
Guess the Song!
Some legends are told
Some turn to dust or to gold
But you will remember me
Remember me for centuries
And just one mistake
Is all it will take
We'll go down in history
Remember me for centuries
(Hey yeah, oh hey, hey yeah)
Remember me for centuries
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Last Chorus of the Day:
Shut Up And Dance by Walk the Moon
La! ~SCP
