The License Only Kids Can Provide

I was at the restaurant when some guy bumped into my arm. I grabbed my arm and wailed like a baby and jumped up and down and otherwise acted like I was in terrible pain. Pretty soon, everyone in the cafe was staring at me and a few people started backing away.

Oh, sorry, I was telling that wrong. It was my grandchild who bumped into me and she couldn’t stop laughing as I grabbed my arm and wailed like a baby and jumped up and down and otherwise acted like I was in terrible pain. We attracted attention, but nobody felt the need to grab their own kids and retreat.

Add this to the long list of things that make children the best kind of people. Not only do they find everything fun and interesting and entertaining, they give grown-ups a license to do the same. Seriously, being an adult can be stressful and challenging and boring and absolutely the antithesis of fun. But being a kid can be all kinds of fun, and the price of admission for adults is simply to play along.

“Acting like an adult,” is not a sign of maturity; it’s really a punishment.

Silly is great. Silly songs, silly faces and silly noises will relieve the stress and add just a bit of energy to our days. When we grow up, though, we’re supposed to relinquish our right to be silly, to give up the simple joy of not being serious all the time.

The world would be a happier place if we all burst into song once in a while, and not real songs, either. When you’re singing a real song, you have to be on key. When you make it up as you go, off key is part of the fun. Children understand this instinctively, but we get that idea knocked out of us long before we’re old enough to have our own kids.

Children also have much more patience than adults, even though it’s not obvious to most of us. That’s because we don’t really have patience as adults. We have endurance. We put up with things, which isn’t quite the same as being patient. Kids, meanwhile, will play the same game over and over without losing interest and without demanding that we “grow up” and stop being silly. That, my friends, is true patience.

Maybe it’s time for all of us adults to reclaim the joy we once experienced from simply having fun, making faces at each other and being silly as hell. Maybe we’d have more patience at the DMV if we were all singing made-up songs to each other. Maybe we’d find the wait at the doctor’s office more enjoyable if we all made funny noises. Maybe we could all benefit from a kid-size dollop of silliness.

Really, what do we have to lose? It would really be a hoot if we followed the mandates from the Ministry of Silly Walks.  We’d all have more fun and we’d add just a bit of hilarity to the lives of those around us, even the adults.

Next family dinner, next business meeting, next first date, give it a try. What could possibly go wrong?

One of these days, maybe, we'll do a video post of our favorite funny noises, but you might miss it if you don't click here to become a subscriber. And that would be a serious problem, don't you think?
 

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