At the end of the romantic comedy, 'Hope Floats', these words are what you are left with. "My Daddy says that childhood is the greatest time of my life. But I think he is wrong I agree with my mommy. Childhood is what you spend the rest of your life trying to overcome." I am paraphrasing of course; however, I agree one hundred percent with this sentiment.

So often we go into adulthood reacting as we did when we were children that the process of changing oneself from child to adult takes years past the drinking age. I myself, often feel that I am a five year old stuck in a 30 year old body. How am I going to make the bills and teach my children everything they need to know to become productive members of society, when I have yet to learn them all myself?

I look back at crushes that never materialized into meaningful relationships. How meaningful can a teenage relationship can be anyway? At disappointments, that in the grand scheme of things were nothing more than failures and how devastating they were. I wonder, frankly, how I ever overcame the tremendous loss of never really getting a lead role, a supporting role for that matter, in any one of the four school musicals I was in, or of losing my first chair position to a sophomore in band my senior year.

I realize that these things are not really all that important. However, how do I reconcile them now as an adult? How do I get over them? I understand that they are what make me who I am. But then I must wonder; does that mean that because I really didn't date in High School, I won't date now? Does that mean those years of loneliness as a child will again manifest themselves into years of loneliness as an adult?

I have three children of my own, now. Do the losses of my childhood mean I will push them to succeed where I failed? Will I insist that my daughter date, wear makeup, and skirts to attract boys as a teenager, because I did not do any of those things as a kid? Will my boys be pushed to excel in sports? Because I never took to an interest in sports when I was growing up. Or will I expect them to participate in the Band and Newspaper because those were areas in which I excelled as a child? Or will I do the right thing and allow them to become themselves, the people they are destined to be?

The answer I guess has yet to be decided. I hope I do not do these things to my kids. I hope I will allow them to become the people they are destined to become without much interference from me, because a childhood sticks with you forever. Your childhood is made up of the lessons to be learned. It is important to remember that the lessons will come; but not without mistakes to be made along the way.

Learn more about this author, Jessica Mcclain.
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