I wasn’t as well-behaved as you, but I really relate to this. As a kid, so much felt like *injustice* — The counters were too tall to reach, I had to get somebody to lift me up to reach the drinking fountain at the town library, I didn’t have any “rights”!

I most of all, for some reason, HATED the word “child.” It sounded so condescending, it made me think of the little Hummel figurines that my grandmother loved. I preferred that all grown-ups call us “kids.”

And just like you, I LOVE being an adult and doing adult things, and am never, ever nostalgic about the “simpler” days of childhood. I mean, I might miss someone I knew back then, or miss the landscape where I grew up, or maybe an experience or pop-culture moment, but I don’t miss actually being a *dependent child*. I’ve also never been crazy about any kind of “wholesome” activity — e.g., I simply will NOT to go friends’ afternoon pumpkin-carving parties, or Easter-egg-dying fests. I say, “Call me afterwards if you want to go to the bar in the evening!”

I’m also unsure about whether I want to reproduce. Not for the exact same reasons, but I really get what you were saying in this post.

If you haven’t already read it, you might enjoy Meghan Daum’s essay on dolls in _My Misspent Youth_: although I find you to be a superior writer.

Bisoux,

Lillet