An adult or “a person who is fully grown or developed” is not what I aspire to be. If I had to state what I aspire to be I would say “I would want to stay a kid”. I believe many would retort that this goal is impossible, or condemn my “childish” nature, saying I am trying to take the easy way out. Firstly, if you thought I was attempting to live out a Peter Pan fantasy and adventure through Neverland, then you have taken me too literally. For me remaining a child is more so a mindset that I would like to retain. As for whether or not I am trying to take the easy way out, I would like to pose my own questions. In what way is being a child easy? Is it the lack of responsibility? Or is it the suppressed freedoms? Or maybe it is the fact you are forced to live in someone else’s shadow. Being a kid in an adult’s world is not quite as easy as it may seem. With this being the case how come adults now seem unsympathetic or even dismissive of the struggles of children? Were they not kids once themselves? Didn’t they go through these same struggles? I would answer with yes and no. Yes, adults were once kids, but the world has since changed. Might the struggles adults faced not be the same as the struggles children now face? Seeing how the world has changed, I believe we also need to change our perspective about children. In my opinion children represent opportunity for the future. As such we need to accept that they are the inheritors of this world, and we must nurture their potential, respect generational differences in order to prepare them for success. This means children must be engaged early and often in the society they are inheriting.

Change has affected many things in our society including how we regard children. Currently many adults view children as “ruder and wilder and more irresponsible than ever before. In the past, according to William Turner children “were likely to be encouraged to be polite, courteous, and respectful, especially toward adults, today messages from the significant adults in their lives are likely to emphasize self-respect, self-assertiveness and self-esteem.” Why has change left such a negative effect on how adults view children? Is this really a fair judgement to make of those born in a different world living under different circumstances. For many children the very traits that are seen as rude or irresponsible are the traits they need to survive in this dynamic society.

Another factor attributing to adults’ low outlook of today’s children is the differences in media. The representations of adults and children on television has also evolved with the time. This can be seen in Turner’s statements where he says, “TV shows in the '50s to the '80s tended to present kids in a more favorable light, and conflicts could be resolved in half an hour by all-wise parents and a little ingenuity.” (Parales 1999) As we can see in more modern television this trend has not continued. Depictions of the modern kids show them as more mischievous and rebellious. These depictions are evident in shows such as The Suite Life of Zack and Cody and the cartoon Codename Kids Next Door (KND). One shows the shenanigans of two brothers disrupting the daily work of adults occurring throughout a hotel, while the other shows direct conflict between kids and adults as we see in the everyday struggles of the KND to fight “adult tyranny”. I believe this show while it was targeted at children leaves adults with the idea that children are bratty, unnecessarily rebellious, and automatically disrespectful towards adults. I think depictions like this can negatively affect the way people look at the target audience, despite initial intentions of being for entertainment.

Some may say “it’s just a cartoon,” and think that it doesn’t have any deeper aspects. I believe this negative way of looking at animation is the same as how we have been looking at children. An example of this correlation can be seen when adults often think that animation is “just for kids” thus it cannot have a deeper meaning when compared to live action film or in other words the world of adults. I find this way of thinking similar to believing that it is “easy” to be a kid. I said earlier that children live in a world dominated by adults. While I do not believe adults have it out to oppress children in a tyrannical manner, they definitely could be more aware of the relationship that they are in. I believe that both live action and animation like adults and children are in or at least should be in a cooperative relationship.

 In entertainment live action films and animation both work to engage the viewer and catch their interest. In order to do this, they both “must invoke a belief in its existence, in its reality” as Piotr Dumala says. (Dumala 2011) Animation and live action film both construct their own narratives by doing so they also create worlds that we would see as unrealistic, dreamlike yet interesting, engaging, growing, even ever-expanding. This is what I believe children are capable of, creating, changing, and improving the world in ways in which people of previous generations would not have even fathomed could occur.

 One such example is how readily available information can be found on the internet. 

Changes such as this have allowed the spread of different cultures to take place. An example of this cultural exchange is seen in the Italian anime boom. Generations “of children who, growing up in the 1990s and 2000s, became buyers of manga” helped to push an “expansion, which has lasted from 1996 to the late 2000s.” With this push not only were “European publishers and television networks” asking “for manga and anime like in… previous” years, but also “Japanese companies began to promote the exportation of their franchises, in an international ‘push and pull’ process.” (Pellitteri 2014) In this example the new generation having grown up in a slightly different society is able to push change in a positive direction. I believe by engaging with children on more equal terms will allow for society to grow on an even larger scale than the Italian anime boom. In order to make this belief a reality, adults must be pushed to see children as more than just their inferiors.

Some adults tend to see children as unfit for almost everything in some cases children are even looked down on for simply joining in on adults’ conversation, seen in the old saying that “children should be seen and not heard.” In Margot Slades RELATIONSHIPS; WHEN TOTS JOIN ADULTS UNINVITED Slade discusses how for the benefit of adult friendships kids should not be carried in tow. I would like to instead give reason for why this sentiment is neglectful of the child’s development into their own adulthood. While adults do deserve their time to intermingle between themselves. They also must fulfill their duty as the previous generation and lead the next generation by example, an act I would deem impossible if those of the next generation are always segregated from those that came before. You may say it's the parents job to lead their children in the right direction, but as a society we must be able to see things from more than one angle if we are going to be able to “keep moving forward” as they say in Meet the Robinsons. We must show children that there are different ways to see thing and different ways to accomplish goal. 

In the animated movie, Meet the Robinsons many of the characters show how people should learn from their mistakes and forge on. I believe we cannot only learn from our own mistakes but also the mistakes that came before us. So then why do adults push children out of an environment where they can learn and grow to surpass the many expectations that adults will place upon them. (Slade 1983)

Not only are we excluding children from a learning environment different from that which they usually experience we are also missing out on enriched by others who have different experiences and perspectives than we know. As Adora Svitak says kids “have a lot to share,” and “adults should start learning from” them. (Svitak 2010) For instance kids are always inquisitive and trying to pick something up, whether it be a piece of information, a skill, or some other type of habit. Unlike adults, kids believe they will continue to grow, they know they have yet to hit what adults perceive to be their limits. Another way of seeing this is to think that as one grows they begin to overlook or dismiss the chances of something occurring or being true. We as humans do so because we come to think that we know how everything in the world works because of our experiences in life. But similar to how Pedro Serrazina discusses Walter Benjamin and Sergei Eisenstein in some cases we need to make sure we are looking at our subject in the right context in order to find its “inner meaning.” (Serrazina 2013)

Sometimes there are goals that can only be achieved when we step back and look at it with fresh eyes. I believe this is also the case for children and adults. An example of this is in the 1920s when science fiction(sf) was “finding a scant place in live-action cinema, with much of its appearance limited…, the sf imagination established a vigorous presence in the work of the period's key animation studios”. (Telotte 2015) This shows how finding new ways to look at or solve a problem is often beneficial. Looking at the world with fresh eyes often can help us solve some of the toughest problems. Children are the fresh eyes of adults. They are able to see the world in a perspective that adults would never have thought to look. Who is to say that they are not going to be able to answer some of our biggest problems when it is their turn up to bat.

As kids and adults we often think that one side has to have the upper hand or has to be able to outdo the other. I believe this to be counterproductive for us as a team of free thinkers and as residents of the same space. In order for us to be effective in our pursuits adults, those in power must come to terms with the fact that they are not the only ones who should have a say in how the world is run. Kids are not to be overlooked and thought of convenient only when they reach a certain age. As I have stated children given the chance will surprise in ways we can yet to imagine. Like in animation there are things that can only be done when looked in different ways. I believe we should not only look to our elders for answers to the future but also those who come have come after us. For they are the ones who will walk through life both with us and past us. Also in order for them to step up to the challenges we together must face the facts that expectations have changed and so should we as kid president says “if we’re all on the same team let’s start acting like it”. (Kid President) In conclusion they must be shown the many aspects of the world that they will be inheriting. The good and the bad, the favorable and the unfavorable, all so that they will be properly prepared for the world they will come to lead.
