Kids are great at providing perspective.
First, some context: I don’t have kids.
I’m not a parent and don’t have child rearing experience.
Having a young person around is an endless series of perspective shifts.
It’s hard to not learn a few lessons with a kid in the mix.
For the purposes of this article, we’ll call the nine-year-old in question Giggles.
A nickname she’s more than earned.
Kids don’t have that luxury.
She doesn’t always like everything but it only takes a few minute to move on to something else.
A fun song on the radio, a game on her iPod, a watermelon named George.
Distractions aren’t hard to come by, and there’s usually something interesting to pay attention to.
Adults don’t always have the luxury of fun distractions.
Ask questions, look out the window, or just appreciate where you are.
You don’t swear, you don’t drink, and you don’t make crude adult jokes.
Which leads to the single most devastating, horrifying, calamitous thing I’ve ever done.
I accidentally said “fuck” around the nine-year-old.
Much to my surprise and delight, the universe did not explode.
More importantly, she did not immediately begin swearing like a sailor.
This doesn’t mean there are no standards or that you don’t have to do anything right.
Mistakes are a normal part of adult routines.
Overall habits are almost always more important.
Most bosses won’t care if you’re five minutes late one day out of the year.
They care if you’re a half hour late every day.
Patterns are more telling than individual slip ups.
In fact, the occasional mistake can evenmake you more likeable.
So, don’t freak out or let it get you down if you fall short occasionally.
Such was the case with Giggles when she first learned to play Bioshock.
However, it was decided she was finally old and mature enough to give it a try.
These behaviors are learned.
With adults watching and teaching, Giggles worked her way through Rapture.
This was not a frustration free process.
Giggles needed to be instructed on how to scavenge for ammo or when to hack turrets several times.
However, none of these hurdles convinced her to give up.
Adults have a tendency to believe that if they haven’t already learned something, they shouldn’t try.
I’m a writer, so it would be an uphill battle to learn advanced calculus.
Naturally, I was left with a big pile of mangos.
Of course, we looked to share them with Giggles.
The conversation went as well as you might expect:
“Hey, Giggles.
Would you like some mangos?
““Eww, no.
I don’t like mangos.
““Have you ever had mangos?"”….No.”
As predictably as a Big Bang Theory punchline, we gave Giggles some mangos and she loved them.
For adults, it’s not always so easy.
We don’t like to try things that are unfamiliar because unfamiliar is scary.
This sort of hesitance is a surefire way to miss out on sweet new experiences.
We play grown up video games, go toconventions, and watch TV shows.
Giggles has close friends that are twenty years her senior just as easily as she has younger friends.
They’re not entirely caretakers, they’re not chaperones.
They’re just bigger people she hangs out with.
Adults like to keep to their established social patterns.
If you’re in your 20s, you’re supposed to hang out with people in their 20s.
If you’re a parent, it’s crucial that you hang out with other parents.
Sometimes a kid has two dads.
Sometimes a college dropout starts a billion dollar business.
Sometimes a finance major becomes an artist.
The “normal” template works for many people (they have to come from somewhere, right?
), but it’s not mandatory.
Or your best friend might be someone else’s nine year old.
Photos byDonna Sutton,Kyle Nishioka,woodleywonderworks, andPete Brown.
