Kira Nelson: On Growing Up

C.S. Lewis in On Three Ways of Writing for Children writes a defense against those who would argue that a middle aged man who still holds dear the mythic creatures introduced to him in his youth suffers the pitiable fate of arrested development (Lewis, 34). Lewis’ response to such a criticism is that the fear of childishness and desire to be grown up are themselves childishness and must be put away. Rather than forcefully eliminating the things of childhood that continue to delight, Lewis suggests that one take on a philosophy of enriching oneself as the years go on and presents the analogy of a tree which adds rings as it grows without eliminating the ones that came before.

Unlike the pressure of Lewis’ critics, I experienced the opposite kind growing up. When I was a child about five years old, my father warned me against growing up. Half joking, he sat me down at the dining room table as if we were having a very grave sit-down talk. He warned me of the woes of adulthood, jokingly wagging his finger at me saying “I’m telling you, Kira, don’t do it” and praised the childhood years that I currently enjoyed. He asked me to promise I never would grow up, but stay young always. In response, I offered an ardent vow that I would not, having an intense desire to remain just as I was as long as I possibly could. It seemed fairly reasonable to my little mind that I could do it. If I tried hard enough, fought it with everything in me, why should I not be able to fight it off or at least keep it at bay?

Both aims, the aim of totally putting childishness away and that of holding onto childhood, are restrictive, repressive and unhealthy. I greatly like Lewis’ analogy of growing as trees do, not putting away the rings of childhood years, but also taking on new rings of growth as we mature.