Growing Up

Growing up - read the poster hanging above Mrs. Langer’s second grade classroom. Below the poster sat a small plant and – Sam’s favorite – a hamster relaxing in a hamster house.

Sam was a member of Mrs. Langer’s classroom, and every chance he had, he ran - as fast as he was allowed - to catch a glimpse of Mr. Hammy, the classroom hamster. Last week, Sam had even bought Mr. Hammy a toy – a small green and white colored ball. When Mr. Hammy was presented with the new toy, he squealed with joy, holding on to the ball with his tiny claws, chewing on the rubbery lining. 

Sam always delighted in seeing Mr. Hammy playing with the gifted ball, until one day, when Mr. Hammy no longer seemed interested in playing with it. 

“Mrs. Langer?” Sam wondered, “Why isn’t Mr. Hammy playing with my ball like he used to?”

“Well,” explained Mrs. Langer, “Mr. Hammy is growing up. And as you grow up, toys that you used to play with, you may put away and no longer play with. Mr. Hammy is becoming a big, strong adult hamster.”

“Huh.” Sam responded with disappointment.

After school that day, Sam returned home and was greeted by his older brother and parents. His older brother, however, quickly retreated to his bedroom to do homework. Watching closely, Sam copied him by retreating to his own bedroom.

Toys were spread out all over the floor of his bedroom, toys that he loved and enjoyed playing with. This is going to take a while, he thought to himself, as he started to gather the toys, one by one, and place them in his toy chest. Once the toys were all in the chest, Sam locked the chest and slumped on to his bed.

Now what? Sam thought to himself. He didn’t feel any better. In fact, without his toys, he was rather bored. Sam waited, as the hours slowly ticked by, until he could hear his older brother snoring in the adjacent room.

Tip-toeing into his brother’s room, Sam grabbed his brother’s backpack, and quickly retreated back to his own bedroom. He then emptied the contents of the backpack onto the floor. Papers, folders, and books tumbled out from the backpack. 

Grabbing the book closest to him, Sam opened the book and began reading:

“On Joseph’s farm there were a total of 40 animals - a combination of pigs and chickens. Joseph counted 100 legs in all. How many pigs were there, and how many chickens were there?” 

That’s a good question, Sam thought to himself. He grabbed another book and began reading:

“One of the causes of world hunger is infrastructure instability. Poor infrastructure makes it difficult – even impossible – to transport food to towns or remote villages that desperately need it.”

Scratching his head, Sam opened yet another book:

“The US national debt has reached levels not seen since World War II. As of 2019, US debt has grown beyond 17 trillion dollars.”

Yawning, Sam closed the book and crawled into bed.  Unfortunately, sleep did not come easy for Sam that night - he ruminated over all the things he had just read. 

Pigs have four legs and chickens have two, but could I possibly know how many pigs and chickens there were? And how would I be able to build enough roads and bridges to allow starving children to receive the food they desperately need? 

As for 17 trillion dollars, Sam wasn’t sure exactly how much that was, but was hopeful that perhaps the coins in his piggy bank would be able to cover that.

I’m not sure I like this growing up thing. Sam would rather have spent the night bringing out his toys and playing with them one more time, but, as Mrs. Langer said, in order to be a strong grown-up, you need to put away your toys and deal with grown-up issues. While not feeling content, exhaustion eventually overtook Sam, and he slept through the night.

The next morning Sam grabbed the books he took from his older brother’s room and transferred them to his own backpack. He dragged the heavy backpack all the way to school, before letting the backpack fall off his shoulder in Mrs. Langer’s classroom.

It was free-time, and one of Sam’s best friends immediately approached him.

“Tom and I are playing monster game! Come join us!”

Sam declined, taking out one of his newly possessed books from his backpack. “I need to work on solving these problems.”

Throughout the rest of the school day, Sam declined to join in on the fun and games with his classmates, and instead focused on the problems documented in the book. But despite all the pondering and contemplation, head-scratching and struggling, Sam wasn’t one inch closer to solving any of the problems.

Defeated, Sam buried his head into the book. 

“What’s wrong?” asked Mrs. Langer.

“Last night I put away all of my toys, and I started reading my brother’s books. They're full of problems, and I don’t know how to fix any of them. I really just want to play with my toys and my friends, but I also want to grow up, like Mr. Hammy.”

“Oh? Well let’s go see what Mr. Hammy is doing right now.”

Sam and his teacher walked over to the hamster house and took a look. While the green and white ball was still sitting by itself, Mr. Hammy was instead in a hamster wheel, squealing as he ran and made the wheel spin and spin. 

“I just placed the wheel in his house this morning, and he’s already loving it,” Mrs. Langer started. “Growing up doesn't mean you have to throw away all your toys and only focus on adult problems. As you grow up, there may come a time where you no longer enjoy playing with a specific toy, but that doesn't mean you need to stop playing all together.”

Surprised, Sam asked Mrs. Langer, “Does that mean I can still play with my friends?”

“Of course you can! And you don’t need to stop just because you’re all grown up.”