There is a particular kind of impatience that comes with being an adult. I notice it most in the company of children.
A journey from the car to the front door should take two minutes. You know the distance. You know the route. You have probably walked it hundreds of times, and there is absolutely nothing about it that deserves any further investigation.
A child disagrees.
There is something moving near the pavement. An insect, perhaps. Or a small piece of paper being carried by the wind. There is an unusual mark on the wall, a stone that looks different from the others, or a question about why the moon sometimes appears before it gets dark.
And there you are, standing with your keys in your hand, wondering how a journey of twenty metres has somehow become an expedition.
You say, “Come on, we’re getting late.”
It is such an ordinary sentence. We say it without thinking. In the morning before school, while putting on shoes, at the supermarket, on the way to the car. Sometimes we have perfectly good reasons. There are appointments to keep, dinners to prepare, and a hundred things that cannot simply be abandoned because someone has discovered an interesting beetle.
Still, I have begun to wonder about the things we hurry our children past.
And, more uncomfortably, about the things we have taught ourselves to stop seeing.
Think about how differently a child experiences an ordinary day.
An adult walks into a room and sees a room. We recognise the furniture, register the temperature, remember why we came in, and move towards whatever needs doing.
A small child might notice the strip of sunlight falling across the floor. They may try to catch the floating dust in it, or become fascinated by the way their shadow stretches across the wall.
What interests me is that the child is not necessarily seeing something we cannot see.
The difference is that we have already decided it is familiar.
We know what sunlight is. We know what shadows are. We have explanations for insects, rain, the changing moon, and the tiny plants that emerge between paving stones.
And knowing these things can make us strangely incurious about them.
There is an enormous difference between recognising something and actually paying attention to it. But somewhere in adulthood, the two become almost indistinguishable.
We look at a tree and see a tree. A child might ask why one branch has no leaves, whether the tree feels the rain, or how it knows which way to grow.
Some of these questions have straightforward scientific answers. Others are wonderfully confused. Occasionally, you find yourself unable to explain something you thought you understood perfectly well.
That is one of the unexpected pleasures of spending time with a child.
They reveal how much of our knowledge has become a collection of conclusions we rarely examine.
We have become very good at knowing what things are, and rather less interested in wondering about them.
I sometimes think about the peculiar relationship children have with time.
For an adult, an afternoon is already divided before it begins. There are things to finish, messages to answer, places to be. Even our leisure comes with plans. We arrange experiences, estimate how long they should last, and quietly measure whether they were worth the effort.
Children have not yet fully acquired this habit.
A cardboard box can occupy an entire afternoon. Filling a container with water and emptying it again can be a perfectly satisfying activity. A conversation about dinosaurs can move, without warning or embarrassment, into a serious inquiry about what happens to food inside the human body.
And an activity we have carefully planned, paid for, and driven across the city to attend may be less interesting than the automatic doors at its entrance.
There is something almost comical about that.
We spend considerable effort creating memorable experiences for our children, while they remain gloriously indifferent to our understanding of what makes an experience memorable.
Of course, they enjoy exciting places and new toys. But their attention is not always attracted by the things adults consider special.
Sometimes what matters to them is being allowed to stay with something for a little longer.
To repeat an experiment. To finish a question. To examine a thing from every possible angle without being told that there is nothing more to see.
I wonder how much of what we call boredom in adulthood is simply the inability to remain interested without being entertained.
Children, given some freedom, can be extraordinarily resourceful in this respect.
They can make a whole afternoon out of what we would call nothing.
There is another small thing I have noticed about childhood.
Children often want to participate in the most unremarkable parts of our lives.
You are preparing something in the kitchen, and they want to help. You are assembling a piece of furniture, and they want to hold the screwdriver. You are folding clothes, and suddenly someone has very strong opinions about how the towels should be arranged.
Their assistance may double the time required.
The flour goes everywhere. The screws are put in the wrong place. The clothes you have just folded are enthusiastically unfolded.
And yet the seriousness with which they approach these small responsibilities can be quite touching.
They are delighted to be included.
An adult may think of these activities as chores, things to get through before the more interesting part of the day can begin. To a child, they are opportunities to enter the mysterious world of grown-ups.
They want to understand how things work. They want to be useful. They want to discover that their small hands can make some difference to the world around them.
There is something deeply human about that desire.
We often imagine childhood as a period of play that must be protected from the responsibilities of adult life. But children do not always distinguish so sharply between work and play.
Sometimes carrying a small shopping bag all the way home, without anyone offering to take it, can give a child a satisfaction that no expensive toy could provide.
It is the satisfaction of having been trusted.
And perhaps the patience we show in allowing them to participate matters more than the efficiency we lose.
I should say that I do not believe childhood is some uninterrupted state of happiness and discovery.
Anyone who spends enough time with children knows otherwise.
There are difficult mornings, unreasonable demands, tears over apparently insignificant things, and elaborate negotiations concerning the wearing of socks.
A child can ask a fascinating question about the universe and, thirty seconds later, become inconsolable because a banana has broken in half.
The wonder and the chaos belong to the same person.
Neither do I think every ordinary moment needs to become a profound experience. Parents get tired. Sometimes you simply need to finish cooking dinner. Sometimes you cannot stop to investigate another stone on the pavement.
And that is all right.
What concerns me is something more gradual.
The possibility that, without ever intending to, we might teach children to regard their own curiosity as an inconvenience.
That there is always somewhere more important to be. That questions must have a practical purpose. That a thing becomes less worthy of attention once it is familiar.
And perhaps we teach them these lessons most convincingly through the way we live ourselves.
Children notice more than we realise.
They observe what excites us, what irritates us, what we make time for, and what we dismiss. They learn something about the value of the world from the way we move through it.
If we never stop to look at anything, why should they believe looking matters?
There is a strange tenderness in watching a child grow older.
Every new ability is a small triumph. They learn to read a sentence, tie their shoes, remember a complicated instruction, or explain something to you with an earnest confidence that did not exist a few months earlier.
You are proud of them.
Naturally, you are.
But alongside that pride comes the awareness that something is continually changing, often too quietly for us to notice.
One day, they will no longer need help with the task that currently takes you both ten minutes. The stories they want to tell you will become different. Their questions will change. Their interests will grow beyond the small world you have shared with them.
And those changes are exactly what we are helping them towards.
I would never want to preserve a child in childhood, as though growing older were an unfortunate thing we should somehow prevent.
There is so much life ahead of them. So much they deserve to discover independently.
But I do hope that growing up does not have to mean losing that willingness to be astonished by ordinary things.
I hope they continue asking questions whose answers cannot be found immediately. That they remain curious about people whose lives are different from their own. That they are never embarrassed to admit they do not know something.
And I hope we give them enough room, while they are young, to develop these habits without constantly asking them to justify the time they take.
Perhaps the part of all this that moves me most is what children give back to us, often without knowing it.
We imagine ourselves introducing them to the world.
We teach them names, explanations, manners, routines. We show them how to cross roads and read books and make sense of things that initially seem confusing.
But their questions have a way of exposing what we ourselves have stopped questioning.
Their excitement can make an ordinary place interesting again.
Their insistence on looking at something can draw our attention towards a small detail that has been there for years, patiently escaping our notice.
I don’t think adults need to become children again. Childhood contains enough uncertainty and helplessness that I have no wish to romanticise it completely.
But there are a few things about being a child that seem worth carrying into the rest of life.
The freedom to be interested without needing a reason.
The pleasure of doing something badly while learning how to do it.
The willingness to ask a question without first worrying whether it sounds foolish.
And the ability to enjoy an afternoon without having to produce anything from it.
These are not childish qualities. They are human qualities that adulthood does not always encourage us to retain.
I think about that when I hear myself saying, “Come on, we’re getting late.”
Sometimes we really are late, and we have to keep walking.
But on other days, there is no particular urgency. I am simply accustomed to moving.
And if a small hand pulls me towards something on the ground, perhaps I can allow myself to be interrupted.
Perhaps I can look properly, even if I have already seen a hundred things just like it.
Perhaps I can admit that I don’t know the answer to whatever question comes next.
There is something rather lovely about being asked to explain the world by someone who has only just arrived in it.
Especially when, every now and then, they make you realise how much of it you have been taking for granted.
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By the way, did you know that I’m actively writing in malayalam also these days. Find them here. I’ve written a small book as well if you’re into that. If you like listening to stuff, do scroll through the selection of podcasts. If you’ve time, have a look at the visuals I’ve made. Instagram link for some visual updates.
Grateful for your moment here. Keep coming back here : )
