Most psychological currents metaphorically refer to childhood as a lost paradise, hence the term kindergarten (from German – “children garden”).

Thus, for adults, a key therapeutic approach for a healthy psycho-emotional development, is to connect with our so-called “inner child”, as a symbolic way of reclaiming our spontaneity, playfulness, commitment to action, innocence, surprise, instinct, and other advantages condensed in the figure of a child.

In order to achieve happiness, we are encouraged to be children again, perhaps with a bit of sciatica, a few extra rolls around our body, or an incipient alopecia, but children, nonetheless. Reconnecting with this instance repressed by never-ending aspects, stereotypes, fear of judgement, what “should be”, what is politically correct, the institutionalisation of education and socialisation, etc.

Aside of the therapeutic scope, artists too take the lead when it comes to the idealisation of childhood, which they associate with a state of freedom, complete individualisation, creativity; in opposition to the alienating Power, which seeks maximum control and social homogenisation.

Paradoxically, the Power (political, economic, commercial, media…) also partakes in this revindication, but it does so in its own way, promoting the infantilisation of adults, not with the goal of stimulating their creativity and life force, and the expansion of the individual, but with the strategic objective of establishing codependent relationships and, of course, positioning itself in the role of the provider, the “mom and dad”, the “invisible gardener” of this new “kindergarten”. In this process, the online world plays a crucial role, with its promise of omnipotence and instantaneity, prototypical of a child.

If, on top of this, we also consider the unbearable string of economic crises, it is understandable that adults want to be children again – those blessed creatures who don’t have to worry about mortgages and taxes, and who don’t fear being fired, nor are they ever frustrated trying to find a new job.

At the same time, another social phenomenon takes place: the adultification of children, stimulated – once again- by the digital world (i.e. easy access to content that is not adequate for their developmental age), growing competitiveness (children are subjected to a high paced education, competitions where children race to satisfy the narcissistic demands of their parents…), the commercial exploitation of children, etc.

This is us: adults who want to be children, and children who want to be adults, in a never-ending Ferris wheel. The truth is, and always has been, that adults carry their childhood with them, and children learn through imitation from their adult attachment figures. The issue is the disproportionate intensity of the phenomenon, the forced exploitation of a natural process.

Because social media platforms are a never-ending matrix of symbols, we see cases such as Hasbulla’s, who is a young Russian man in his early 20s, who looks like a five-year-old child (due to a growth hormone deficiency), and has millions of followers on social media, making him a viral phenomenon. A reversible symbol: an adult child and a child-adult at the same time.

Adults wanting to recover their lost paradise, and children yearning to reach the paradise of the future. Meanwhile, the present has been put on ice. And from here stems another popular phenomenon, integrated in personal development (yoga, mindfulness…), which echoes Eastern traditions and continues to find it’s scientific base in neuroscience, and its promise of a “paradise” which can be found in the present (in the awareness of the present moment), without the nostalgia of the past and the frustrations of the future that never comes.

It seems to make sense, but when we relax into this idea, we realise that the “present” is gone as soon as we finish naming it. The present is unattainable!

Perhaps the paradise has nothing to do with time. Perhaps it’s more about love and our emotional bonds with other people: grandparents, parents, children, friends, partners, etc. Now I’m reminded of the ending of Mark Twain’s wonderful book “The Diaries of Adam and Eve”, in which Adam who had initially rejected the insidious presence of Eve (this creature that “sheds water out of the holes it looks with”, and “names everything that comes along”), ends up relinquishing and admitting that “Wheresoever she was, THERE was Eden”. Maybe, just maybe, the key to happiness lies in the quality of our interpersonal relationships. Perhaps it’s not as much about connecting with our inner child, as it is about connecting with those standing right in front of us.

 

David García.

Strategic Research Consultant