Loveday Writing

Ignorance is bliss (and other things I miss since becoming a grown up)

There are many things I miss since becoming a grown up, over the next eight columns, I will chronicle eight specific things I miss and why I miss them. The first thing I will write about that I miss since becoming a grown up would easily be one of the biggest—ignorance.

Now when I say ignorance, I don’t mean stupidity, I mean the innocent ignorance that comes with being a child. This ignorance is usually in the form of a parent and/or other adults such as relatives and teachers hiding certain information, usually sensitive from a child to protect them and their innocence.

My own parents did this to my brother and I on several occasions during our childhoods which included but was not limited to: not talking about the major tragic significance and circumstances behind the September 11 terrorist attacks, exactly how bad our Nan’s (my father’s mother) cancer really was and, although they were honest, avoiding the death talk for as long as possible, or at least until we started asking our own questions on life.

I understand my parents need to hide certain information such as that from my brother and I and they did succeed in keeping out innocence intact for as long as possible. When I look back on my childhood, I see it as a happy time untainted by bad or torturous memories. Now as an adult and journalism student with access  to the internet, I am constantly exposed to information most of which isn’t all that harmful, but when I find out certain information on my loved ones, especially things I wish I never knew, that’s when I miss the innocent ignorance of my childhood.

Once you know something you can’t take it back or un-know it, especially if you have cases similar to mine such as discovering that some relatives have a different definition to love than you do and your views and feelings for them completely change forever, and having my mother tell me what was going through her head at different points of her life and marriage. When you find out information like this, how you absorb and react to that information shapes who you will become as an adult as you are at a crossroads. You have to make a decision, you have to ask yourself “do I take in that information for what it is, no matter how harmful or hurtful and deal with it or run away from it?” At least this was the case for me and I found that although it’s easier to choose the latter, if I really wanted to grow up I had to choose the former and I’ve never regretted it.

When I was a child, I rarely found myself at that crossroads as my parents chose what I did and didn’t need to know. Although growing up is inevitable and you can’t avoid finding out information, both things you want to know and things you wish you didn’t. As I got older, my parents let the knowledge reins loose a bit and slowly let me find out things and learn, both through informing me themselves and being honest with me when I asked them certain questions. The older I got, the looser the reins, however my parents always let me know that I can tell them anything.

There is an old saying, ignorance is bliss and that was true for my childhood, although I am just as happy being an informed adult, there are times where I miss my innocence and that’s why innocent ignorance is one of biggest things I miss most since becoming a grown up.