HOW GREAT IS IT TO BE A KID…OR NOT?

Being a kid is the greatest thing on the planet…unless it’s not. But let’s focus on the positive, at least from the get-go, shall we?

When you’re a kid you have nary a care, no worries, unless…

Well it’s not a perfect world. Things were nowhere near as tough though, as difficult, when I was a boy some years ago as they can be today.

Back then, what it looked like, it was. What it was came with few surprises. And if there were any surprises they seemed to be of the more natural sort.

Retrospectively, growing up seemed a bit easier then. (Banalities of this sort handed down from one generation to the next are older than dirt, I know). Sensationalism was more of an aberrant thing. Far more uncommon it felt. Off the grid stuff.

Maybe you saw a National Enquirer or a comparable, colorful tabloid rag at the supermarket checkout which caught your young eyes but over time you paid less attention.

Once your positive IQ grew, you started to figure out in an embryonic way what was real and what wasn’t. Your innocence wasn’t yet lost, your perspective was sharpening.

A good thing, this honing of the thought process, chronology notwithstanding. Granted, more banal babble.

A kid doesn’t care how he or she looks or about a lot of other things which turn out to be unimportant until puberty hits. And consume, envelop, and suffocatingly embrace, this puberty stage does.

To emerge unscathed from such a magnitudinous hormonal assault is a trick in and of itself. But peace can be had thank goodness, with relatively few casualties strewn about.

Pre-pubescence is a gift from the heavens above, for its purity and simplicity alone. No looking over the shoulder. Straight ahead. The emphasis is on what’s directly in front of you. Adolescent concerns lurk but don’t exist. They just don’t yet apply.

Take getting dressed for example. Few if any little kids care what they wear or how they look. After the chapter of mommy or daddy (or nanny I suppose) choosing the day’s first and however many subsequent ensembles has been completed, a kid is allowed to pick out his own clothing (with some guidance of course).

The basic wardrobe is provided for you — it’s not like you selected certain pieces after some thoughtful mulling or measured rumination — and that’s just fine. The harried quotient of your parents (or nanny) on a particular morning is a likely determinant as to how much leeway you as a kid will have here.

But you don’t mind because you’ll wear anything anyway. And do, largely with no thought or care and with impunity. Checks are worn with stripes. Bold checks with houndstooth. Plaids are featured with other plaids or busy patterns. Colors are mismatched. Solid blacks and whites are generally out of the picture. You wear the same footwear daily until the seasons change or maybe even beyond. You sport a hat and coat depending on the weather.

Bingo! You look mahvelous!!!

The beauty of all this is that peer pressure and other social landmines have not yet taken root. No one is interested in your brand of sneakers or jeans or jacket and there is no judgment, hence the preservation of a slice of innocence.

Your focus is elsewhere. You want to finger-paint or draw. You want to learn the alphabet and write your name. You want to read. You want to play, to run around the schoolyard at recess and scream at the top of your lungs. You want to drink juice and eat a graham cracker. You want to have a play-date with a friend at their house or at yours. You want birthday cake and presents. Games. You want to have fun.

You don’t necessarily want to take a nap.

Why can’t it always be like this?

Because that’s just not how life works, though certain elements do come full-circle.

Just as a little kid cares about some things but not others, so too do those who have racked up the mileage if you will, as has been suggested.

I can’t speak for others but I don’t place as high a premium on some or the same things as I did when I was younger. I think that’s normal. It doesn’t mean you lose your competitive edge or your joie de vivre. Nor does it mean that you sacrifice happiness.

It means that you are in a different place in your life, courtesy of having lived and hopefully learned something or other. Learning defines living.

I saw my neighbor’s kid walking home from school the other day. I was looking out the window and there he was. I’ve seen kids walking home from school for nearly sixty years. I was one of them and my brother before me.

This kid in all his grandeur — my impression, not his — was the picture of perfection in that he, Rockwell-style was kicking a rock toward his final destination. He was wearing what he was wearing and thinking whatever he was thinking.

He made it to his house smiling, and not really caring a whit about it, one way or another.