My First 5-Minute Friday

Congratulations to me, for I have joined my first Linky party.  I am meant to write, unhindered by my own inhibitions about whether or not my work is up to snuff, for five minutes every Friday in response to the prompt provided.  Obviously, this is a Saturday, and not a Friday, but I only discovered this Linky today, so I'm a day late, (and ALWAYS a dollar short, believe me).  Here goes.

  People say that children experience complete innocence, a carefree existence, that childhood is the happiest time of life.  They're right, of course, about the complete innocence--at least that's how our children come issued to us; it's up to us to make sure they maintain it until it is appropriate for them to develop "a better acquaintance with the world."  But as for being carefree, that is absolute nonsense.  Children have their own worries and cares, I assure you, they just appear carefree to those who don't take a small child's burdens that seriously.  However, their joy is more perfect and complete than that of any adult.
When my daughter sits on my knee, watching her favorite tv clip from the show "Charlie and Lola" AGAIN, she giggles and kicks her little legs and generally enjoys this treat with total abandon.  No fears about whether she looks silly.  No obsession with what she "should" be doing at this moment but isn't.  Utter joy.  Sheer happiness.  Children aren't carefree, they're just less demanding.  I know; that sounds crazy.  Believe me, my child is a demanding individual.  She wants what she wants when she wants it like every other 2-year-old, and it's my job as a mom to continually teach her the fine art of controlling her passions and making compromises with me until she really begins to grasp self-control.  When I say she's less demanding, I mean that she is more easily pleased.  It is not as difficult to fill her with pure joy as it is for me to experience such a feeling.  Childlike innocence and childlike faith go hand-in-hand, and the result is childlike joy.