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cimoreneThe kind of killjoy I always was is that when I was 12, the family friend and babysitting grad student who considered herself my 'adoptive big sister' said to me, "You're 12 going on 36," and I reacted with delight.
Maybe I should feel bad about being Like That instead of more or less proud of it, but I'm not sure you can help that (can you?). (Is being a killjoy like some form of mild sadism too? Maybe that's genetic.)
Thirty-six always seemed like a good age to me, and I liked the idea of it. (I didn't know about the increasing frequency of waking up with kinks in your neck after the mid-twenties yet at that point.) I had always preferred adult company to children's, which in retrospect was probably from a combination of an understandable difficulty relating to agemates, and the fact that I usually interacted with adults in the company of my parents, which was considerably easier for an anxious and socially awkward precocious child. They encouraged my belief that adults should treat me more or less like an adult, and my sense of this was so strong that I furiously resented adults who condescended to me (if I think about it now, I'll still get angry: natural-born talent for holding grudges here).
I've been thirty-six for more than six months, and I've remembered this incident more often in that time for obvious reasons. Aside from the kinks in the neck thing, it's not a bad pick, but ironically given my childhood attitude, my relationship to adulthood from the inside has always been weird (traumatic life changes, mental health issues, etc). Or maybe not ironic, since you could say as a child I simply wanted to be an adult, and as an adult I pretty quickly realized that adulthood didn't exist.
Also, I was already just as capable of raining on a parade or refusing to join in the fun at 12, although it's certainly easier to read instead of participating as an adult, which is a big plus.
Maybe I should feel bad about being Like That instead of more or less proud of it, but I'm not sure you can help that (can you?). (Is being a killjoy like some form of mild sadism too? Maybe that's genetic.)
Thirty-six always seemed like a good age to me, and I liked the idea of it. (I didn't know about the increasing frequency of waking up with kinks in your neck after the mid-twenties yet at that point.) I had always preferred adult company to children's, which in retrospect was probably from a combination of an understandable difficulty relating to agemates, and the fact that I usually interacted with adults in the company of my parents, which was considerably easier for an anxious and socially awkward precocious child. They encouraged my belief that adults should treat me more or less like an adult, and my sense of this was so strong that I furiously resented adults who condescended to me (if I think about it now, I'll still get angry: natural-born talent for holding grudges here).
I've been thirty-six for more than six months, and I've remembered this incident more often in that time for obvious reasons. Aside from the kinks in the neck thing, it's not a bad pick, but ironically given my childhood attitude, my relationship to adulthood from the inside has always been weird (traumatic life changes, mental health issues, etc). Or maybe not ironic, since you could say as a child I simply wanted to be an adult, and as an adult I pretty quickly realized that adulthood didn't exist.
Also, I was already just as capable of raining on a parade or refusing to join in the fun at 12, although it's certainly easier to read instead of participating as an adult, which is a big plus.
(no subject)
Date: 6 Jul 2019 01:27 pm (UTC)So I relate. I also relate to how hard you hated being condescended to, because yeah, same mood -- I still hate it, I still hate people thinking they can tell what I know and don't know based on what they think I am and what I look like, and generally discounting my knowledge and understanding, because that's also the shit that made being a little kid really bad -- never being listened, never being believed, always being told I possibly couldn't know what I was talking about because "you're just a child".
I still repress my response to a lot of problems I see developing b/c I internalised that "don't be a killjoy/spoilsport" so hard, especially when I didn't go along with humour that hurt me. I think people with happy childhoods may actually be a Lie adults make up to justify treating people like shit b/c you don't have to think about how you're treating people if you just assume they're too young/too dumb to understand that you're being nasty to them.
Anyway I can't wait for my thirties. I honestly don't think adulthood is an actual thing either at this point but I'm frankly so over being young. I have been over my age being treated as a point against me since I was roughly six years old (literally yesterday I heard a coworker who really hates that I won't kowtow to her complain about how the real problem with our bosses must be that "they're all younger than [her and the person she was talking to]") and I just want to skip a decade and get to where people are telling me "why can't you act your age???"
(no subject)
Date: 6 Jul 2019 01:52 pm (UTC)But it sounds like your childhood was a lot worse than mine in some ways; because I think my resentment for that sort of adult was greater because I didn't have to deal with them as much, or rather, not unsupported. Also there's a cultural element, because I wasn't really treated as if I should be grateful and life was all downhill from there as much as I was treated as a child in terms of respect and so on.
A middle to upper-middle class white American child's life tends to be very... insulated? Maybe not exactly, but... babied? Cushioned?, and while I didn't exactly have that, I had a lot of adjacent experiences from the people around me with more money. Childhood itself is treated very differently there - not just from in Finland, but all the Nordic countries as far as I can tell. I mean, people were way more likely to call me sweetheart and dismiss my opinions than to refuse to give me the benefit of the doubt and punish me or anything like that, and that's just the race/class differences. But also, because of how extremely affirming and supportive and open and touchy-feely my parents were (are), a lot of the attempts to, er, oppress me from the outside world slid off without really affecting my self-esteem; I pretty much came armed with a strong inherent sense that the people attacking me were almost certainly in the wrong and it was likely because they were stupid, which gave an unusual tinge to all those spirit-crushing and soul-sapping horrible places that children have to endure from time to time. A sort of superior feeling and banked resentment towards institutions like bad schools (probably not nearly as much of a thing in Finland, or at least not in the same way) and bad teachers (universal)... a complete moral and intellectual confidence in the principle that authority should be questioned (my parents carted me along with them on feminist protest marches as a toddler)... and a relatively privileged position in my various social environments that usually let me escape the worst those experiences had to offer.
(no subject)
Date: 6 Jul 2019 02:37 pm (UTC)But man, I really envy you for having that sense that power is inherently untrustworthy instilled into you early on. I kind of learned that too, but in a way that ate into my self-esteem for years.
(no subject)
Date: 6 Jul 2019 03:09 pm (UTC)But yes, teaching children to question authority (and really to question everything, but if you instill Question Authority properly it comes along with it) as a deliberate way of being is, I think, a huge advantage to the children, and kind of rare - I mean the authoritarian approach is old-fashioned now, which is good, but explicitly teaching kids to question is still rare. And my parents also coached me (and my younger sister) through that sort of thing, not just by questioning authority in the abstract and talking freely with us about social justice and the evils commited by authorities in history, but also talking over day-to-day injustices in their lives and our lives and how and why they were wrong, even if there was nothing in our power to do about them.
Mom didn't flinch from, say, telling me that they were on my side but in this case they didn't have any way to make the teacher be fair, and she would complain to somebody higher up for me if it would do any good but she already knew that it wouldn't because it was the whole school district's poilicy and none of them even believed that it was illegal; and she couldn't control what I chose to do but advised me to do what the teacher demanded and stand up for the pledge of allegiance because otherwise the teacher would continue to make life difficult for both of us, and she knew how much I hated being in trouble.
(no subject)
Date: 6 Jul 2019 03:58 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 6 Jul 2019 06:39 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 6 Jul 2019 01:49 pm (UTC)As it is said on Tumblr: big mood.
(no subject)
Date: 6 Jul 2019 01:53 pm (UTC)