The End of Innocence

I can see it coming for the time is nigh! All of us go through this stage at a certain time in our lives. The ones going through it cannot wait, because the world suddenly seems a different place, with new horizons and unending vistas. But when it is your own child that you see approaching that stage, it is another thing altogether. If you are wondering what it is that I am ranting about, it is that age when innocence dies, and the first signs of independent intelligence peeks out. It is both heartbreaking and wonderful at the same time, just as it is inevitable, when the wonder in your child's eyes turns slowly into perceptive understanding.

It is that period, when the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus are replaced by Bratz dolls and Batman and unwavering belief with  doubt and sometimes misgiving. When a gap-toothed grin turns into a self-conscious smile. The stage when restraint and self-awareness takes the place of physical abandon. Up to this stage every present, toy or gift is treated with the same joy and eagerness as any other, when distinctions of colorful buttons and size far outweigh the differences in value. Everything is taken at face value and no merit given on skin color or money. My son went through that stage a few years ago, and I was eagerly waiting for him on the other side. I wanted him to grow up, as much as he wanted it, so that I could have a friend as well as a son. I wanted the physical and mental presence of a mature youth, who I could chat and play with, not realizing that I would be soon outstripped in both elements. I did not miss his full throttled laugh and the desire to play hide and go-seek and catch-catch games, until they were just a memory. Nor did I think much of the preciousness of moments when I carried him fast asleep from the car to his bed, on late weekend nights, until the day when I physically could not do it.

With my daughter however, it is different this time. I love the way her eyes widen when I explain something or say something so far-stretched that only a daughter can believe. I cannot get enough of the wide eyed wonder with which she faces the world. Her absolute faith, that every spoken word is the truth, and that lies are a theoretical concept that only exist in movies. As someone said “Innocence is always unsuspicious”. Her conviction, that every opinion that anyone has, is the absolute correct one, until someone comes and says different. I love her unrestricted laughter, as well as her innocent chatter. I love to feel her curl up in my arms and her soft kisses on my cheeks as she gives me hugs that for me are worth dying for (what my wife calls butterfly kisses and velcro hugs). I cannot get enough of her hero worship, her reactions when I give her the simplest of answers, or the comfort and relief that she gets when I tell her that I am there to wipe away her tears and protect her from everything bad. But what I love most of all are the tickling sessions where she laughs so hard that she runs out of breath, the physical abandon with which she screams with delicious delight as I gently prod and push her in exactly the areas that I know she cannot stand. This stage to me will always be one of gentleness and tenderness, warmth and shared laughter, of an inability or incapability to lie, and an everlasting wonder at the beauty of life.

How can you stop it? Should you even try? I do not know, but I really hate to see the light of wonder slowly die, as intellect, maturity and reason grow. We ourselves stayed as kids for a longer time. Our love for Disney and Enid Blyton endured till a much later age, unlike kids now who outgrow these before they reach double digits. I do not want to get into arguments with her, about the clothes that she wears, or the latest hair-style that she wants to try out, just as I will not want to discuss the excessive attention paid to her looks. These are the death knell for childhood, heralding in an age where the joy of living is replaced by boredom, when being oneself is substituted by being cool, where individuality is traded for conformity, and where indifference and aloofness is the non-emotive fuel used, to propel them faster towards maturity and adulthood.

I want to stop her from using make-up and fussing about her hair, from wearing clothes that suit a twenty-something and using words that she clearly does not understand. There is something about a child that shows the true essence of humanity, reveals our nature as was meant to be, until the thin veneer of modern life corrupted it to something that it should not be. Children are not meant to be clones of adults, but instead should stand out as the beacon of our true selves.

So coming back to my daughter, I see it coming. I see the self-consciousness, the self-awareness and the ego, all growing day by day as the age of innocence comes to an end. My days with this stage in her life are drawing to a close and all I can do is get amazed at the speed with which they came and went. These wonderful years have been captured on photographs and videos, and etched into my brain and my heart, but these will fade, as do all such things, and I will be left with only wisps of memories, to bring happiness on a gloomy day, but never to be lived and experienced again.

The innocent and the beautiful have no enemy but Time - Yeats