When you were a kid, everything was exciting. Pressing the buttons in a lift felt like playing on a Playstation, you could get drunk off popping reams of bubble wrap, the sound of an ice cream van coming round the corner made you shit your tiny pants.
If your birthday was in September you started planning your presents the previous October, you slept for about six hours total in the week before Christmas, even one blue Smartie had you running around the house for about three days straight.
None of these were the most exciting thing about being a kid though, because the most exciting thing to you as a kid was not being one any more.
We wished away our childhoods of zero responsibilities and consequence-free pant shitting for the promised land of adulthood, where nobody could tell us what to do. We wanted to drive our own cars, we wanted to eat ice cream for dinner, we wanted our freedom. We were idiots.
A new YouGov survey shows that kids today are no different – they’re in as much of a rush to grow up as we were. It’s not that surprising really, adulthood does seem exciting when you have no idea of the hell that’s coming for you. Yes, now that we’re big we can stay up ‘til 3am, choose what we want to wear and tattoo soon-to-be ex-girlfriends’ names onto our ribcages, but would we swap it all to be able to sit half-naked on the floor all day driving Hot Wheels around a plastic racetrack? Of course we fucking would, Hot Wheels were awesome.
This YouGov survey asked 2,000 kids between the ages of 8-15 what they were most looking forward to about growing up, and this is what they said. Thing is, they’re probably not going to get most of it:
1. “Being able to stay up late whenever I want”
See, this is the problem with growing up, right, because as soon as you actually get to that age where you’re properly an adult and can do anything you want, you just can’t be fucked any more. Being up at midnight now just means you’re going to be a cranky arsehole at work tomorrow, and the problem with that is that you end up accidentally staying up until midnight most nights of the week, which is probably why everyone thinks you’re a bit of a dick.
2. “Having the freedom to go and visit my friends whenever I want”
You won’t though. You won’t do it. When you’re a kid who’s just been told he’s not allowed to go for a sleepover at Josh’s house tonight and you’re absolutely losing your shit at your mum over it – crying, screaming, threatening to run away forever and never come back – when you were like that you could never imagine one day you’d turn down the chance to go to the pub with Josh, legally drink alcohol with him and then spend the night on his sofa, all because he lives in Zone 3. But you will, and you do.
3. “Getting my own home that I can decorate how I like”
This will never happen. Maybe if you’re lucky you’ll rent somewhere where the bathroom isn’t always a bit mouldy and you’ve got space for a desk in your bedroom. Maybe.
Home sweet home!
4. “Being able to choose my job”
This one’s sad, because it shows that a lot of kids think being able to work your dream job is something to be taken for granted – you get through school, do your sums, and then go off into the world and be a fireman or a footballer or a dinosaur or whatever. Obviously we know that these days even with a uni degree we can be lucky to find a job at all, let alone one we enjoy or be able to follow the career we dreamt of as a kid. Sorry, this bit isn’t very fun, but it kind of sucks doesn’t it?
5. “Being able to buy my own pet”
Can’t really knock this one too much, I have two cats and they’re great. They do shit quite a lot though, and one of them really likes throwing up on the stairs.
Pets are the fucking best
6. “Being able to get up whenever I want”
Sorry kids but except for the brief few years you spend at university when you’ll be able to get out of bed at 4pm, play six games of FIFA in your pyjamas and then go on your third night out in a row, you’ll be getting up at the exact same time you’re getting up for school until you die.
7. “Being able to buy my own food”
Why would you want to buy your own food? At university, when you were kind of a grown-up but still not really, you used to go home almost entirely so you didn’t have to buy your own food. Children, let me tell you, somebody else buying your food is infinitely better than buying it yourself. Honestly, an adult human will do almost anything if he hears word of free grub. It doesn’t even really matter what it is, because it’ll always be better than the contents of your fridge: “Slightly rotting lettuce, three eggs and a Muller Corner”.
The classic adult’s fridge, complete with depressing lighting
8. “Buying my own clothes”
There are two ways people buy clothes as adults: either they buy far too many clothes and end up not being able to afford other such useful purchases as “rent” and “food”. This person vows at the end of every month to be better, sort their finances out, and stop buying fucking hats (“I don’t even like hats”, they rage to themself as they stare hopelessly at their online banking app). Then they go and do it all again almost immediately. The other person still dresses exactly like they did when they were 17, because they are still wearing all the same the clothes they had when they were 17. They’ve spent about £35 on new garments in the past two years, including fancy dress for Halloween.
9. “Being able to have children”
Can’t decide if it’s sweet or weird, this one. Either way, given the way everything is going right now the responsible thing to do is to lop your dick off, tie up your ovaries and let the human race die out with any tiny shred of dignity it has left.
10. “Getting to dye my hair any colour I want”
Alright fine you can have this one. You won’t be able to afford to do it at a salon though.
