Everyone loves the immediate, unfiltered emotions of joy, of sadness, of complete and utter honesty that only a child can give. The reflection of seeing such raw emotions is a cathartic pleasure for all, hearkening back to a simpler time when they, too, could be so carefree. Having our needs met so completely and totally, having the freedom to simply react, having the joyous highs of feeling love and security without the burden of knowing what their absence is, this is summed up in a nostalgic instant when one looks at a small child.
One could argue that a full experience of delight can’t be had without the understanding of what it means to know misery. While the notion of needing to know despair to appreciate elation is, at first, totally reasonable, this is yet another thing that children don’t have to be burdened by.
Eventually though, children learn that a parent’s arms aren’t always going to be there to catch them when they fall. Doubt and caution then become concepts gestating within the child, thoughts that never come fully to term and are carried for a lifetime, changing shape and scope but never leaving. When an adult -- whose shoulders have carried the loads of knowing both the highs and lows of life -- sees the same carefree attitude in older children and young adults, the very traits that were endearing in a small child become a source of scorn and rebuke.
“She doesn’t have enough responsibility.”
“I wish he had some direction in his life.”
“She obviously isn’t working hard enough if she can make those stupid choices.”
“He’s never worked a hard day in his life.”
This often leads to parents resenting the offspring for not being serious enough or dedicated enough, even though these precise traits were praised and admired when the child was a fledgling. The parents have worked hard and long so the children could have a lighter burden on their shoulders than the parents did. Irrationally the children are then resented for not having to work as hard as their predecessors and not seeing the sacrifices that have been made because those barriers were overcome a generation before them.
This, too, is the way of things. Each generation stands on the shoulders of the generation before it, though they don’t often see or appreciate it until the next generation comes along.
This will continue as long as the previous generation believes that the current generation isn’t working hard enough to give the next generation a better, less burdened, future. But when the unabashed joy of a new generation comes along with all the promise of a tomorrow without the oppressive load of yesterday, everyone gets younger. Every careworn adult gets to see first-hand, perhaps only briefly, the awesome highs of joy unburdened by the despair of past grief and grievances while they themselves still hold the memory of the lows of life.