The Childhood Pressure of Acting Grown-Up

I’m writing this two weeks before I turn 18 years old. 

How has it come so fast?

I just turned 11, didn’t I? 

Except that was seven years ago, and I'm quite-a-few inches taller. My hair isn’t soft like it used to be, and my chubby cheeks have dwindled beneath the dark circles surrounding my eyes: the eyes of indigo that don’t look as round these days. There are more lines on my hands, marks on my face, scars on my body. 

I’m still the same girl, regardless. Maybe not physically, but on the inside. As humans, we evolve emotionally, but our core personalities – our truest, rawest selves – they never change. I still get excited over attaining a cardboard box and all of its crafty possibilities, I still become animated in the Calico Critters section of the toy store, and I still hold back tears when someone raises their voice at me. We are conditioned into thinking these little sparkles of childish innocence will eventually fade away, but I’m clinging to them. I refuse to let my whimsy leave me for the silly concept of maturity. 

But there was a time when I would have thrown it all away without remorse.

It feels like not long ago, I was 12 years old, cross-legged on my bedroom floor with palettes, powders and brushes splayed out around me. I was figuring out how to do my makeup, because all the cool girls were wearing it to the dance. I would beg my parents to let me wear a crop-top as I thought showing skin meant I was grown-up. I’d force my mum to wait for me down the road from my school to pick me up, instead of letting her wait in the playground where all the kids could see – what loser has their mum picking them up from school? 

Yet, I sit here, with no makeup on in a baggy sweatshirt, fearfully grasping to any feeling of childhood innocence, dishing out as much of it as I can before it’s inevitably all gone forever.

Why is it that as children we want to be perceived as grown-up? 

Looking back, there’s a clear correlation between the most popular kids and the most “mature.” The cool kids in the playground didn’t believe in fairies and unicorns — they were playing ‘love island’ and planning parties, discussing boyfriends and drama. From a young age, I felt the pressure to grow up — I ditched my passion for arts and crafts in exchange for makeup, all in effort to fit in and seem mature. 

But I didn’t realise then that there’s no turning back. Once you’re an adult, you’re an adult forever. All of a sudden, I have to make my own doctor’s appointments, get a job, and learn to drive. I find myself wishing I could turn back time to when my biggest worry was remembering my lines in the school play, a time when I was oblivious to how precious childhood innocence was, and instead doing as much as possible to dispose of it. 

Now that I'm nearly 18, I have finally allowed myself to indulge in childish things, and to release the pressure of maturity. 

Attempting to revive my childhood whimsy, I began creating art again a month ago. As a child, art was my greatest passion (before it was flushed away in a rush of video games and social media). When I reached for my art supplies — slightly dried up due to their seven-year hiatus — my soul felt alive for the first time in years. With each stroke of my brush, I was not just painting a flower on a canvas, but also a smile on my face, beaming with the glow of a healthy inner child. Now, I welcome the excitement that comes with walking into the toy store, and I feel no shame about my growing stuffed animal collection. I’m not running away from childhood anymore; I’m savoring it. 

Although it greatly upsets me how I wasted so much of my childhood trying to appear grown-up, this realization has taught me a valuable lesson: slow down. I’ll never be as young as I am at this moment, and I plan on making the most of it.

Let yourself be childish — your inner child will be grateful.