"Your childhood days are the best days of your life?"
Does anyone believe this? Does this mean things are going to get worse from now on?Why do people say this?Does it depress kids who are having a hard time by influencing them to believe things are never going to improve?
Your thoughts please?

They don't say it for that reason. They say it to encourage you to make the best of your childhood.

That statement would be better put:

"Childhood - the most innocent days of your life."

While we all can recall having what we would have classed as big issues when we were kids, the fact is that apart from dotage, there's no other time when the world is so free of responsibility and worry.

It's a case of the two sides of one coin, you're either innocent or experienced as William Blake illustrated in his poetic writings. The innocent see the wonder in the world and has no idea of the dangers lurking out of sight; while the experienced see the danger, but can prepare and are forearmed, but preoccupied as a result. Once a person has become experienced they can never again regain innocence.

Childhood is the most innocent time of life and so people tend to look back with fondness and forget the fact that a child can be powerless and at the mercy of those supposed to care for them.

Life is what you make it and I'm sure there are those who would say that the best times of their lives were had after they had left childhood well behind them.

Originally posted by Carmine
That statement would be better put:

"Childhood - the most innocent days of your life."

While we all can recall having what we would have classed as big issues when we were kids, the fact is that apart from dotage, there's no other time when the world is so free of responsibility and worry.

It's a case of the two sides of one coin, you're either innocent or experienced as William Blake illustrated in his poetic writings. The innocent see the wonder in the world and has no idea of the dangers lurking out of sight; while the experienced see the danger, but can prepare and are forearmed, but preoccupied as a result. Once a person has become experienced they can never again regain innocence.

Childhood is the most innocent time of life and so people tend to look back with fondness and forget the fact that a child can be powerless and at the mercy of those supposed to care for them.

Life is what you make it and I'm sure there are those who would say that the best times of their lives were had after they had left childhood well behind them.

You make some very good points,especially regarding Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience,however the phrase i always heard was that they are the best.Personally,like you i believe them to be the most innocent,but not the best for some kids.Life is what you make it,unless you have lots of bad luck,and i think some people spend too much of their time reminiscing about their past rather than living.Just interested to hear people's thoughts and maybe get some happy stories about other good time in their lives.
My best days so far have been when i was a student.They changed me so much.

Innocence would be so much more appreciated once you've tried having some major responsibilities.

Innocence is wasted on the young!

Best years? Strewth, not for me. 6 years old getting up at 3.30am and being sent downt' pit, hauling coal in waggons along galleries that were too small fort' ponies. A crust and a cup of water taken from that running downt' walls to tied me over 'til 10.00pm an bedtime. Master let me have the used straw from his stables to sleep on.
Mind you it weren't all bad. It was pure luxury when, at the age of 8, I got that job int' cotton mill with it's 16 hour shifts. What's the loss of 4 fingers int' machinery when life's that good?
Eh, they were the days alright!

Originally posted by Ned Ludd
Best years? Strewth, not for me. 6 years old getting up at 3.30am and being sent downt' pit, hauling coal in waggons along galleries that were too small fort' ponies. A crust and a cup of water taken from that running downt' walls to tied me over 'til 10.00pm an bedtime. Master let me have the used straw from his stables to sleep on.
Mind you it weren't all bad. It was pure luxury when, at the age of 8, I got that job int' cotton mill with it's 16 hour shifts. What's the loss of 4 fingers int' machinery when life's that good?
Eh, they were the days alright!

Ned
You have to admit you got a lot of things free then though....Rickets, Ringworm, Diptheria, Dysentry,and if you commited any crime you got to go on a free boat ride to Australia....aye life were reyt great in the old days.

My childhood days were spent playing wi my best friend we used to go around the block with wool tieing all the lamp posts together and some times door handles
it was fun at the time lol
we also used to get apples of 1of our neighbours trees selling them at the end of our passage 4- 5p llb and making mud pies and purfum with rose petals and water
it was a lot safer in them days although its not that many moons ago really lol :P

Were the times you could see life the way it should be and not the way it is.
Having said that a lot of kids today are pushed into adulthood by out of control mums and dads,

Originally posted by sarah_d

My best days so far have been when i was a student.They changed me so much.


I'm sure this is true for many people. The opportunity to loosen the apron strings in a relatively safe environment is arguably just as important as the academic goal of going to Uni.

A pity so few youngsters are offered this route to 'growing up'.

Originally posted by Ned Ludd
Best years? Strewth, not for me. 6 years old getting up at 3.30am and being sent downt' pit, hauling coal in waggons along galleries that were too small fort' ponies. A crust and a cup of water taken from that running downt' walls to tied me over 'til 10.00pm an bedtime. Master let me have the used straw from his stables to sleep on.
Mind you it weren't all bad. It was pure luxury when, at the age of 8, I got that job int' cotton mill with it's 16 hour shifts. What's the loss of 4 fingers int' machinery when life's that good?
Eh, they were the days alright!
You wer lucky....:D

I don't think we appreciate our childhoods at the time, because although most of us few, if any 'adult' type responsibilities we had the worries and fears of being a child.

I loved my childhood - supportive parents who did what they could to help me along, local kids to play with and a mother who appreciated that I needed to get out and play away from home to learn some independence - this in the late 1960s and early 1970s when the Moors Murderers and Mary Bell were still fairly clear in people's memories.

The hobbies and interests I started back then have mostly stayed with me, and my attitudes towards other were formed then.

However, I also remember being bullied, being scared of my parents dying, being scared of dying msyelf, being worried about school, being worried about homework, being terrified of French and Maths teachers, being shy.....the list of stuff goes on.

Six of one, half a dozen of teh other. As you get older the fears and responsibilities change, but they're still as relevant as a child as they are as an adult. In each case you have to learn to manage in a world that is occasionally bloody awkward!

Joe

Originally posted by owdlad
Ned
You have to admit you got a lot of things free then though....Rickets, Ringworm, Diptheria, Dysentry,and if you commited any crime you got to go on a free boat ride to Australia....aye life were reyt great in the old days.
and a spawny eyed parrot face for a mother???

Aaahhh yes I remember fondly the time I was dragged home from my friends house, at the age of 4, kicking and screaming because I didn't want to come home.

Then screaming at my dad "IT'S MY LIFE !!!"

Or telling my parents frequently when things didn't go my way
"YOU wanted me"

Now I'm getting pay back big time. Like yesterday when my 4 year old helped my 2 year old cut chunks of curls from her hair!!!

No sympathy from my parents as you can imagine.

It seems that I was thought to be Rosemary's baby but I do still look back on my childhood fondly.