I just finished reading a nice, touching article—just right for a Saturday morning.
It is Michael Winship’s “Miley, We Hardly Knew Ye.”
The article is about how some of our young celebrities, such as Miley Cyrus, step through their childhood just way too fast.
I am sure the words and thoughts struck a different chord within each different reader.
The following struck a chord with me:
Not that all is lost. This week, I attended the 8th grade graduation of my girlfriend’s niece Lexi in Philadelphia. The ceremony was in a church, the girls were in white dresses, the boys in school blazers, ties and khakis. Each endeavored to be as grown up as possible but they were still caught up in jokes and wisecracks, still relishing sweet memories of science fairs, May Day dances and the school production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” Seventeen is a few years away, thank goodness.
Why? Because I just attended the “graduation” of my 10-year-old grandson—from 5th grade! (He is now going to the BIG Middle School.)
While he appears in his “graduation photo” in cap and gown, at the graduation ceremony most boys wore jacket and tie and most girls a nice dress.
However, when he graduated from kindergarten, he and all the other children wore caps and gowns.
Of course, the parents and—especially—the grandparents were extremely proud on both occasions, not only for the achievements of their children and grandchildren, but also of how mature and “grown-up” they looked.
And therein lies the rub: are we encouraging, pushing, our children to grow up too fast—perhaps for our own satisfaction, perhaps because we want them to have or do the things we did not have the opportunity to have or do when we were young?
For example, although I have a Masters degree, for one reason or another, I have never had the opportunity to proudly wear a cap and gown at the various graduation ceremonies.
Am I attempting to relive the occasion as it ”should have been” for me through my grandson?
I also have some serious concerns about the beauty pageants where all those tiny, precious little girls “perform” like grown-up women.
What motivates the mothers of those little girls to, so early, make teenagers out of their 6-year-olds?
And there are so many other examples of young children, as Winship calls it, losing their “entire childhood.” Cases where we sadly see “an attitude far too mature in one so young.”
I know the Miley Cyrus sensation is a somewhat different case, but there are elements in it that we all share some “complicity” in, just as I, albeit hopefully to a much lesser extent and “gravity,” accept part of the blame for my grandson growing up too fast, by finding him so adorable in a cap-and-gown at age five.
Fortunately, in spite of all our well-meaning and probably unintentional efforts to “warp-speed” our children into maturity, the vast majority of them are still “caught up in jokes and wisecracks, still relishing sweet memories of science fairs, May Day dances and the school production of ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream.’”
Thank you, Michael Winship, for making me reflect and care this Saturday morning “amidst all the news of petrochemical malfeasance in the Gulf…”
The author is a retired U.S. Air Force officer and a writer.