Neverland

“I never get why parents control their children so much. They always think they need to protect their children so much. Do they really think we are so innocent?”

Someone said that to me recently.

Underneath that is basically a statement that after a certain age we, as children, no longer need (or want) our parents to constantly try and protect us from the corrupt ways of the world. It’s just a rewording of what we used to say when we were kids - that we are not a little boy/girl anymore. We can take care of ourselves.

Why did our parents try so hard to protect our innocence, especially when we were in our teens? Even they know that loosing that innocence is an inevitable part of growing into adulthood. It’s not like they don’t know any better themselves. They too were teenagers once upon a time. They too fought with their parents over the right to wear miniskirts, or get a tattoo, or stay out late at night. How come they behave (mostly) just like how their parents used to behave? Was the learning curve between the generations zero?

Somehow, I don’t think so. I don’t think they failed to learn from their past, hence becoming overprotective just like their parents. I think they DID learn something from their past, hence becoming overprotective just like their parents. I think parents try to protect their child’s innocence as much as they try to protect the child itself. And I think that it’s because when we eventually do grow into adulthood, we learn something else, something new, something we don’t know how to appreciate until its lost – and that is the beauty of innocence.

Most people enjoy reminiscing about old times, about all the silly, funny, crazy, whacked up thing we used to do as children and even teenagers. We laugh about how we used to be so naïve and silly, how we didn’t know any better, how life was simple, how the world was simple, how WE were simple. I remember when I was a kid and my parents brought us to a dinosaur exhibition. The monsters looked so real, I only dared watch from behind my father’s leg the entire hour we were inside the expo. Nevermind that I knew it wasn’t real. It still scared me. I remember when I was 6, how there were 2 boys in my class who got in trouble for entering the girls toilet during recess. They said they were trying to catch the ghost that was haunting the girl’s toilet. They even had self made hand drawn seals and plastic rulers as swords. The girls cried because they thought it was true. The teachers laugh because they knew. And the boys… well…. we want to go into the girls toilet too...

We laugh with a joyful heart, about how innocent we were once upon a time. Because we somehow recognize how beautiful it was. And we also realize how it’s only appreciated in hindsight. It seems that’s the most common way good things are appreciated. When it’s already gone.

How unique the story of Peter Pan and the lost boys is. They kept their innocence for as long as they stayed in Neverland. They never had to grow up. They were allowed to keep their innocence. Even the late Michael Jackson named his estate Neverland and tried to make it as child-like as possible, even as he was far from child like. I guess in our own different ways, we all want to be part of Neverland.