The Innocence of Childhood

“Why do bad things happen?”

I shook my head. “I’m not sure, little one.”

Whenever that age old question is asked, answers flock to it by the millions. Each religion, new-age mode of thought, and personal philosophy is drawn to it like moths to a flame. Even when the inquirer is a child of just six years old, eyes wide and bright with innocence many of us lost long ago. I would be lying if I did not say that I had often pondered that question myself.

I shrugged. “Perhaps there are so many good things that happen in the world that bad things simply have to happen. To cancel out.”

The little girl stares up at me and I can’t help but wonder a little bit. Her face is covered in the remnants of chocolate and her expression is full of confusion. I can sense the questions that are bubbling beneath the surface in her mind. It causes a bittersweet tightness in my chest. I remember being her age and full of curiosity, I had a dozen questions all at once and I was determined to get the answers no matter what. Look where that has gotten me.

The lake in front of us is placid and smooth. There are boats farther out on the water that have been preoccupying the little girl's attention for most of the conversation, but her mind is still at work. Trying to make all the puzzle pieces fit.

“Well when bad things happen…” Her sweet voice breaks through the din of cicadas and my reverie. “Does that make bad people?”

“I don’t know,” I sighed. “I think that being bad is a choice, or maybe it’s something that happens to certain people.”

I wished so desperately that I had the answers. Not only for this little girl who thought, as all children do, that the adult has the answers; but also for me. Children, in their blissful innocence, think that the answers are all out there somewhere, that they have only to ask and they shall receive. Often that is the case, but answers to your questions are not always the return. Most of the time it's more questions. That is the curse of adulthood, to carry the burden of having to answer questions that only cause us to question ourselves. It’s the never ending cycle of anxiety until we get burnt out and simply say: Well I don’t know, go ask someone else.

Sometimes it hurts to see yourself through a child's eyes, through the lens of the person you once were before the world caught you. You see someone older who has gone on adventures and surely must have a million stories to tell and the responses to every inquiry that could cross your brain. Yet here you are, in those very shoes looking at what you used to be, and all you see is anxiety. Washed up dreams, unused education, depression, and more questions than a six year-old. This is what maturing has done.

The little girl kicks her legs in the air absent-mindedly, her legs are still too short to touch the ground.

“How did the lake get here?” She asks.

“I- well I guess it used to be a pond and then it collected so much water that over time it grew into a lake.” I replied. I didn’t want to give her another non-answer. She nods, I’m glad it makes sense. I can quiet my guilt and shame with the fact that I was able to answer at least one of her questions.

“What about the sun?” She points in front of us to the setting sun that is casting the sky shades of pinks and orange and yellow. “How did it get there?”

I open my mouth to answer, but then I catch myself. What answer do I give her? I could try to explain the science behind it, the way that it is explained in school, the way that I only half remember. Or do I give her a religious answer? I could say that there is a being, or many beings, far greater than herself and her parents and her grandparents, that set the world into motion. It was that being that set the sun in the sky and told it how it should orbit the earth. Was I any authority about this? I always struggled with the idea that science was absolute truth, and with the thought that some man who lived forever ago knew all about a god that created all of us.

My time on earth had only revealed the fallibility of humanity, the lack of trustworthiness that many allow to rule their lives. Originally I had sworn never to be in their numbers, but over time I had crumbled. Middle school bullies, high school drama, college parties that I woke up from disoriented and in pain. The world I had once viewed so highly, welcomed with open arms, was the thing that hurt and changed me the most. Or maybe it only opened the door inside me, for fear and guilt and shame to rush in. Eventually, despite my fighting, I had unconsciously succumbed and now I was ruled by the parliament they had formed in my head.

Cynicism, anxiety, and depression grew inside me, where once I too was led by curiosity, love, and hope. So all I could do in reply was shrug.

“I don’t know how the sun got in the sky. There are a lot of different answers to that question, and I don’t know which is the right one.”

The little girl, distracted from turtles bobbing in the shallows, looked at me with childlike sadness. The kind that breaks your heart on a deeper level because you know that while they don’t understand your sadness, they can somehow feel it too.

“Are you happy?” The simplest question yet. Her eyes were full of hope, in a way that killed me. Her question pierced my heart and knocked the breath from me. How long had it been since someone had asked me that very question? Are you happy?

Was I happy? I wasn’t sure anymore. I had experienced moments of happiness, yes. Throughout my life I definitely had, in the form of laughter and approval and the clasp of a hand. Kissing a boy in the dark with a smile on my face, eating ice cream on a hot summer day, going to a party where people knew my name. The question however, involved my present, not my past. Was I happy? Presently? I wasn’t sure. Something else that came with the process of maturing was that your emotions felt so much more complicated. The world used to be in black and white but that was not the case anymore.

I used to be able to read my own feelings, but now it was difficult without a journal or a therapist to guide me along. I couldn’t sort myself out on my own anymore. So, was I happy? In this moment when this pure little girl is asking me questions with all the trust in her heart that I have the answers? I didn’t know. There was something sweet in the trust I was receiving from her, and in the memories that had taken hold of me, from my own childhood. The bitterness was there too though, because I didn’t have all the answers, and the child only reminded me of the things that I had lost.

I swallow back my feelings that threaten to bubble to the surface. When talking to children, the tug-of-war between telling them the truth, no matter the truth, and telling them a lie simply because they aren’t ready; is a hard game to play. I’ve talked to many parents about it, and usually they tell me to use my own discretion. So what do I say now?

“I don’t know if I’m happy.” Is what I chose to say, and the little girl nods. She is satisfied by my half truth, the only answer I can safely give her without burdening my conscience more, or having a mental breakdown. Then she rests her head on my shoulder and yawns once, before talking about wanting to go on the boat again. The beauty of being a child is the ability to remain in the present or look to the future- the ability to live without the burden of the past on their shoulders.

It’s a beautiful thing, that all too many children are losing sight of. They get preoccupied with growing up and wanting to seem as old as they possibly can. With that they lose sight of the qualities that they will come to sorely miss. Curiosity especially, imagination secondly, and optimism. These things children possess in spades and by the dozen, that somehow we adults have lost along the way. What would happen if only adults held onto that? Carried it into work and play and relationships, and allowed it to rule their lives instead of the worldly things we were now possessed by. Perhaps then, if I thought and loved as this little child did, with hope and trust, perhaps then I would be able to say yes, I am happy. And perhaps then, I would finally have a way to answer all of her questions.

Which leads me to smile and wrap my arms around her and ask, “Do you have any more questions for me?”

My daughter's responding smile lights up my day and makes every moment of indecision and anxiety worth it.