People often say that children grow up too fast. Childhood seems endless while we are living it, yet when we look back across the years, it feels surprisingly brief. We are building forts out of refrigerator boxes, climbing trees, or inventing worlds no one else can see. Then, almost without noticing when the shift happened, we find ourselves carrying responsibilities, making decisions, and watching the next generation move through the same mysterious passage from childhood into adulthood. Yet the story is not quite that simple. Some children are asked to grow up sooner than they should, while others are given the precious gift of time to explore, imagine, and simply be young.
And perhaps there is another truth hidden inside this familiar phrase. While children are busy growing up, many adults slowly forget how to remain young in the ways that matter most.
I was reminded of this not by a memory from my own childhood, but by something my daughter did just recently. She has a small plot in a community garden near her home. The garden is gated, and within it, the individual plots are marked off with sturdy posts and chicken-wire fencing. A narrow path runs down the middle, allowing gardeners to access their garden beds.
After a heavy snowstorm had passed, she walked over to her plot to get her shovel. The heavy snow had packed down into what people here were jokingly calling “snowcrete”—solid, slick, and surprisingly fast.
She stood at the head of the path, bundled up in her parka, gloves, and knee-high boots. Enjoying the wintery scene and solitude, she suddenly had an idea.
Grabbing a large piece of cardboard from a stack the gardeners use, she sat down on it, lifted the front edge with her hands, and launched herself downhill. The narrow path had turned into a perfect little luge run.
Down she flew, laughing and yelping the whole way.
At the bottom, she climbed back up the hill and did it again. And again. Five times, at least.
Later, she sent me a short video she had filmed while racing down the path. Watching it, I assumed she must be somewhere high in the woods on a steep hill. But no—it was simply the quiet little garden path that leads to her vegetable plot, and my daughter, at fifty-five years old, was having the time of her life—utterly free, for a moment, from responsibility, productivity, and even good sense.
Moments like this remind me that the child within us never fully disappears, if we’re lucky. And perhaps that gift begins with remembering how to protect it in ourselves.
For the Sake of Children 
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