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popcorn
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Yet another stupid survey
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Dec 18 17:41 UTC 1994 |
I had basically a happy normal childhood, I guess. Yet, as a child it seems
like I frequently had clothes that pulled and itched, I'd get voraciously
hungry and had to wait for hours to eat, and I'd need to use the bathroom
when none was at all nearby, which meant waiting for ages. Now that I'm an
adult, none of these things seems to be a problem anymore. I buy clothes
because they're comfortable. If I'm hungry, it's usually mealtime, and if
it's not, it's easy to either wait for mealtime or go ahead and find some
food. And I'm never billions of miles and hours from a bathroom.
I'm sure the world hasn't changed, so it must be my perceptions of it.
I was wondering if other people had the same perceptions of their childhoods.
Did lots of everyday things seem really stressful to you when you were a kid?
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| 40 responses total. |
katie
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response 1 of 40:
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Dec 18 18:16 UTC 1994 |
I think that's because you weren't ever in control; your mom probably bought
your clothes, you ate when she was hungry, and people never really think
about the discomfort of someone else who has to go to the bathroom ("We
just left the house. You can wait till we get home."). Also, when you're a
kid and very hungry and mom says "We'll eat in 5 minutes", it usually means
30 min. Plus time goes by slowly when you're a kid.
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nephi
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response 2 of 40:
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Dec 18 18:17 UTC 1994 |
I remember being very stressed by subtraction in the first grade, and again
by multiplication in the fourth grade, and *again* by long division in the
fifth grade. I guess most things just get easier with practice....
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general
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response 3 of 40:
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Dec 18 21:21 UTC 1994 |
I found it stressful to pay attention in my early school years. All my life
I had been told to go run around the block and release my energy. Now I was
being told by a stranger to sit still for hours on end. My seemingly non-
existant attention span worried my teachers and I was held back in Kinder-
garten. What a joke.
re#2: I know what you mean. Subtraction gave me the worst time. It took me a
month and a half to finally master it.
(Who needs subtraction anyway, it's so...so...NEGATIVE!)
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steve
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response 4 of 40:
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Dec 19 00:15 UTC 1994 |
I think as a child you're more concerned with things that directly
affect you, such as the location of the next bathroom. The fact that
an adult has a larger bladder to hold it doesn't hurt any, either.
But after growing up, I think that most adults just exchange their
infantile fears for the fears of adulthood.
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nephi
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response 5 of 40:
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Dec 19 02:31 UTC 1994 |
... many of which are also infantile....
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gerund
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response 6 of 40:
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Dec 19 14:04 UTC 1994 |
You know, I find it exactly the opposite.
Things were a breeze when I was youngewr, but are more stressful as I
grow older.
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otterwmn
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response 7 of 40:
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Dec 19 16:19 UTC 1994 |
life is tougher for children because their perspective is so different.
Do the weeks (even years!) go by you faster and faster? think about what
fraction of your life is represented by an hour's time. now apply that to
someone who has lived only 1/4 of the time you have. 1/8 of the time.........
See? It's a matter of perspective.
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peacefrg
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response 8 of 40:
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Dec 20 06:09 UTC 1994 |
I don't know. I think things are easier being a child in some aspects.
All a child has to worry about is having fun and doing their homework.
And adult has to worry about a job, money, rent, car payments, etc...
I learned this recently and came to the realization that
Being an adult SUCKS!
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nephi
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response 9 of 40:
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Dec 20 08:36 UTC 1994 |
Do you remember when you were a kid and time went by so slow? Remember
when you were sent to your room for five minutes and it seemed like
forever?
Maybe it didn't just *seem* like a long time, but actually was. If I
was ten, those five minutes would pass as slowly for me as would ten
minutes would if I was twenty. This actually happens.
Humans have little concept of what time really is.
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marcvh
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response 10 of 40:
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Dec 20 14:33 UTC 1994 |
I'd agree that it's a control thing. As a child, (depending on your
parents of course) your parents are supreme all-powerful gods who can
do anything, and it takes time for children to learn the distinction
between things parents can control (when you may leave your room) and
things parents can't control (distance to next bathroom.) You get sort
of a dog-sense of time, where everything is either "right now," or "will
be right now if I just beg and whine and fuss enough," or "never."
As a kid, you have arbitrary amounts of time. You can color in the callouses
on the bottom of your foot with a blue ball-point pen, then connect them
up with lines across the arch, then draw a spider wandering around them.
As an adult, you don't even have time to notice that you have callouses.
You don't even have time to remember which cable channel is which,
because you watch them so infrequently and they're always changing.
That's why you need kids.
It's also a responsibility thing, since that comes along with control.
When you're a kid, Christmas means seeing people and getting stuff.
When you're an adult, it means shopping in crowded malls where you
can't find a parking space and cooking an elaborate dinner and putting
up decorations you're just going to take right down again and running up
bills you won't be able to pay off by next Christmas.
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kentn
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response 11 of 40:
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Dec 20 17:09 UTC 1994 |
I never had any control as a kid, and dang it, the same thing is true
as an adult...
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rcurl
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response 12 of 40:
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Dec 20 18:18 UTC 1994 |
Several comments have been about how time seems to pass more quickly
for adults than children. That relates to the hypothesis that I have
been musing upon, that mental time passes logarithmicaly, starting
at conception. The unit of this time I call the menton, and time in
mentons is given by
x=20*ln(4*t/3)
where t is time in years since conception. The scale is somewhat
arbitrary, like a temperature scale, but has the following useful
properties:
You are born at x = 0 mentons, equal to an age of 9 months.
You are conceived at t=0, but that is -infinity in mentons.
Mentons are the *perceptual* time. The rate at which perceptual time
passes is given by
dx/dt = 20/t
The scale is set so that one calendar year is one (perceptual) menton,
when you are about 20 years from conception. At age 5, the rate is 4
mentons per year, or only 1/4 year per menton - calendar time seems to
drag. At age 60, it is 1/3 menton per year, or 3 years per menton -
calendar time flies.
At conception, time stands still (or, there is a singularity in perceptual
time).
For what its worth.
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tsty
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response 13 of 40:
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Dec 20 18:50 UTC 1994 |
Maybe I was born a curmudgeon ... but when I wasn't "believed"
in about the 3rd/4th grade somewhere-in-there, about having to
use the bathroom, i peed in my seat. Teacher and I went back
and forth a bit before and afterwards - parents called in for
a "conversation" - slightly embarassed but not much really.
It is my responsibility to be as accurate as possible, I was,
she wasn't, i had a wet morning but I was never again refused
the option of using the bathroom. Funny how that worked.
Oh, and I didn't do the mop-up afterwards either.
And when I was told that I +could+ run away from home (about
the same timeframe), mom packed me a lunch for the journey!
I stayed most of the evening in a city park (we were in town
by then) and the lunch was gone and I was hungry again, and ...,
and I went home a few hours after dark (dunno waht the time
was).
Got a casual "welcome home, how was the trip?" - told them
and went on to playing something, maybe reading a book, I
don't really remember after I got back. LIke, Ho-Hum.
In retrospect, I'd guess that dad called everyone in town to
be on the lookout for a tiny (small is too large a word) hobo-vagrant
complete with stick-over-shoulder-holding-stuff and wandering
about. Geeze, was *I* suckered into +that+ one.
I was raised to think things through and ask questions. I don't
remember any other Prime Directive really - tons of Secondary ones
though.
Did the inkpen on callouses thing too, later, after ball points
were invented. Spider webs in the palm of hand too - much fun.
Clothes didn;t always fit, just like popcorn. I was told that
i could change later, but to live with it for now.
Some stress from -dang, just remembered this- a fan, yes, a fan.
It was blowing through the house in the summer sometimes, and would
blow across the dinner table. Howver, it would also be blowing
across the milk glasses and that did something to the milk that
made it taste terrible, +really+ terrible. Mom and dad didn't
get the same taste until i let the milk sit for the whole meal
adn then left it there. Whatever it was (probably spoiled/curdled
or something) they tasted it then. And the fan arrangements were
altered somehow. Stressful to +want+ the milk but force self to
refuse it - I love milk.
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peacefrg
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response 14 of 40:
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Dec 20 20:04 UTC 1994 |
I liked that. Kinda like a day in the life of little ts taylor.
Cute but true. When you were a kid you could get what you wanted
just by whining, crying, or being good. Now you actually have to
work for it.
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randall
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response 15 of 40:
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Dec 21 00:13 UTC 1994 |
As a child, when I whined and cried, I got ignored, not what I wanted.
When I begged and pleaded, I was told no.
When I asked politely and smiled, I generally got just about everything.
Of course, it helps to be unbelievebl cute as a child.
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peacefrg
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response 16 of 40:
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Dec 21 00:14 UTC 1994 |
I was the first born. So I was spoiled up until my sisters came alogng
3 years later. Then it went all to hell.
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kentn
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response 17 of 40:
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Dec 21 02:15 UTC 1994 |
Re 15: That was pretty much my experience, too. My 13-yr-old son still
hasn't figured it out yet (lots of whining and crying over stupid stuff,
and the answer he gets is always 'no').
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aruba
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response 18 of 40:
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Dec 21 03:51 UTC 1994 |
I like #12. Seems about right to me.
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popcorn
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response 19 of 40:
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Dec 21 05:17 UTC 1994 |
I thought #12 was kinda comforting: it means that time isn't going
to get *too* terribly much faster when I'm older. I mean, if a day when
I was a kid felt about as long as a year does now, I'm inclined to worry
that time might run another 365 times faster in another 28 years. It'd
be *really* hard to get anything done then.
So, if perceptual time runs much slower in childhood, this means we spend
the majority of our perceptual time as children, even though we spend the
majority of our chronological time as adults. Interesting....
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aruba
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response 20 of 40:
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Dec 21 07:44 UTC 1994 |
Yup, if you live to be 75 you've spent almost 70% of your life under 18.
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fitz
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response 21 of 40:
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Dec 21 09:54 UTC 1994 |
In regard to ordinary things, I had trouble with fear of the dark.
Although this is not uncommon, I think that I had anxiety longer
than most. I think that I was eleven when the fear left quite
suddenly and completely.
I know the problem with bladder control in childhood: I had to walk home from
school. The promise of an accessible bathroom seemed to get those muscles to
start to relax. If I had trouble getting my key out, I would end up doing the
classic "gotta go" dance. Now that I'm an old fart, I have to think about what
I'm doing to get it started.
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kt8k
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response 22 of 40:
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Dec 21 13:14 UTC 1994 |
My childhood was more living nightmare than anything else, and time passed
in fits and starts - sometimes dragging but then dashing ahead like
lightning periodically (things have always gone pretty fast when you
look back on them.) School was a living hell of frequent hazing and
beatings from the local bullies, unsympathetic adults who didn't know
how to help, and straight As without effort. home life was isolation
from society with only a little sister to beat up on, a dad who was
forever withdrawn, and a mom who ran things but suffered a lot of stress
doing it.
Adult life has about the same content of challenges and problems as my
childhood, but now I am relatively in control - of my attitudes, my
career, my relations with others, etc. - and (since the divorce that
ended a 15 year nightmare marriage that almost killed me) I am building
a life that I love. Those of us who have had traumatic, near death
experiences from whatever cause, often find a new outlook that makes
life pretty wonderful. I am in hog heaven most of the time now.
(BTW, I had the help of some excellent therapists, and some OK ones,
on and off along the way. I give them some of the credit for my current
relatively joyous situation. Childhood and early adulthood were 180
degrees out from this. Life begins around 40, cause by then we have
learned what we're going to learn from the school of hard knocks and
can start using it. Once you're "over the hill" you can COAST - in some ways!
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rcurl
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response 23 of 40:
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Dec 21 15:15 UTC 1994 |
But don't forget that cliff ahead - yet don't dwell upon it.
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scg
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response 24 of 40:
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Dec 21 20:38 UTC 1994 |
Agora 128 linked to InBetween 15.
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