Oluchi Emenike
Maya Angelou wrote “I am convinced that most people do not grow up … we mostly grow old. We carry an accumulation of years in our bodies, and on our faces, but generally our real selves, the children inside, are innocent and shy as magnolias”.
There is so much truth to this statement. For the most part we never do leave our childhood classics behind. If anything, the pandemic has allowed us to reconnect with forgotten books, films and television shows. Whether it was re-reading the Harry Potter books, re-discovering The Chronicles of Narnia or re-watching Avatar the Last Airbender there is so much joy to be gained from revisiting past favourites.
Some of our fondest memories are connected to childhood classics, they are an entryway to the imagination. They generate important questions, educate, and challenge our perception of the world around us. They expose the multi-dimensional nature of the human experience. They reveal the vast spectrum of human emotions; we laugh, we scream, we cry, we experience loss at a young age through childhood classics.
His Dark Artifices by Phillip Pullman remains one of my favourite book series for all the reasons stated above. It introduced such profound concepts and emotions which I barely understood but nevertheless accepted. As a child it doesn’t make sense when two friends can never see each other again. You fail to understand why people grow apart and how relationships previously thought to be indestructible can be severed by a knife. Or when a character has finally found her parents why she must ultimately lose them at the end of the novel. For a child, friendships and relationships are supposed to last forever. So, when the media you consume violates this principle it is incredibly confusing but at the same time crucial. Only now can I properly qualify the themes explored in His Dark Artifices because my understanding of the human psyche has been enriched by personal experience. The loss of friendship and self-sacrifice makes greater sense because we have accumulated these experiences which are a natural consequence of the human condition. Revisiting childhood classics leads to a full circle moment, the realisation that things once unknown are now known.
It makes sense that we derive comfort from revisiting old favourites, these stories are so deeply entrenched in our collective consciousness. Though aimed at children they are created by adults, so naturally treasured by adults, and tell us so much about the adult condition through the eyes of a child. This convergence encourages us to reassess the pressure and intensity of the adult world with child-like enthusiasm. We seek to invoke our world with themes we identify in these classics, freedom from self-consciousness and rejection of normality. So, we continue to rely on these stories.
But there is such a thing as overreliance on the past. In the process of preserving the meaning associated with childhood interests, we risk stifling personal development. We fail to accept that we are so intrinsically different from the people we once were when we first encountered these stories. We struggle to let go of our old identity and release ourselves from the burden of the past. This obviously does not mean that we should reject these old favourites but reminds us that it is okay to outgrow ourselves.
So, I think that the answer to the above question is both yes and no. Childhood classics are foundational to our development. They informed our metamorphosis into the individuals we are now, often shaping us in ways that we cannot see. Yet, it is also natural to outgrow things. It is easy to resist this growth because we are conditioned to believe that the things we love as children have no place in the adult world. But this is not true, we can allow ourselves to grow while still holding on to the essence and value of childhood stories.
There is so much value in growing out of things, it requires an impressive degree of strength of character to realise that the books, films, interests and sometimes even people that used to consume our lives – no longer fit. It signals change, akin to stepping through an unknown door completely blind without the comfort and security of what we knew before. It is daunting, scary, intimidating and so many other things all at once. But most importantly it is essential.
As we grow, we should not needlessly reject our childhood impulses, we should not forget what these stories meant to us and who they represent. Yet, this should not prevent us from embracing change. So that ‘someday we’ll be old enough to start reading fairy tales again’ – C.S. Lewis.
