Kids will be kids
Friday, June 9th, 2006When I fist came to the US, it took me a while to get used to someone calling me a kid. My girl friend (now wife) would say “you are a kid” and I would get seriously offended (I liked her too much to make a big deal out of it though). But slowly, I started realizing that this wasn’t about me being silly or irresponsible, it was about me being excited, wanting to try things and being naively positive. It was more of a compliment than an insult.
What an American sees in childhood is very different than what an Arab would. An American thinks that childhood is a great thing, everyone wishes they would stay kids forever, enjoying life, having fun and eating chocolate. A child is seen as a person who is living through a stage of her life. She is respected and understood.
A typical Arab view on the other hand, sees childhood as an undesirable phase. Something that you have to go through, but the faster you grow out of it the better. Childhood represents irresponsibility, foolishness and the inability to think rationally. A mother would not allow her one year old child play with their food. A sign of maturity is to stop eating candy, and to stop playing games, because a grown up should get rid of any association with child-age behaviors as soon as possible.
I know what you’re thinking. Is that good or bad? Well, I don’t really know. What I know though, is that innovation and creativity are associated with trying things out for the sake of it, making mistakes and then learning from them. If those are signs of childhood, then growing up might be too expensive to be encouraged.