This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at BC chapter.

Let’s take a moment and think back to those awkward middle school and high school years. Remember yourself as a young teenager? Those years were fun, no doubt! I wasn’t a popular kid, but I always thought I was ridiculously cool. This has been recently revealed to me by reading some of my older Facebook posts and notes, circa the leaving-MySpace-joining-Facebook-transition era. Of course I didn’t think I was cool when I was younger – I was just trying to do what I thought would be considered cool by others.

How exactly did I, and undoubtedly most of the other teens, try to act cool? In my opinion, it was an attempt at acting like a grown-up. For starters, we tried to avoid embarrassment. That was quite a challenge because at the time, almost everything was considered embarrassing. For example, I used to shop at Justice, a store formerly known as Limited Too. I loved the store and thought I was being really trendy. Eventually, I came to the deep realization that oh no! Maybe this store was for little kids and all of the older, cooler kids shopped at more awesome stores, like Abercrombie and Hollister. As a result, I tried to spend less time at the fabulous Limited Too, and if I was shopping with my mom and she insisted we go in there, I tried to pull her out as soon as possible.

Looking back, this seems so silly! But my example is just the tip of the iceberg. My sister is at this awkward age right now and I could go on forever about the things she considers embarrassing and tries to avoid. Some of them I just don’t understand. For instance, another mall story: my mom was shopping with my sister when suddenly my sister said, “I’ll be right back” and promptly disappeared. My mom was rather confused, especially when my sister didn’t come back for a while and wasn’t answering her phone. When she did return, she explained that she saw a girl from school with her mom so she hid. That made absolutely no sense to me or my mom, but it’s a true story.

Let’s return back to me for a second. I was embarrassed to wear hats in the winter. I lived in Boston for a large chunk of my childhood, which, as you all know, is very cold! And I thought I looked funny in a hat. True, there are different styles of hats and you can try to find one that best suits you, but it’s just a hat! It’s meant to keep you warm and it does a pretty good job of that. It makes zero sense to not want to wear hats when it’s below freezing!

As I was starting to hint at, don’t these things that we were embarrassed by when we were younger seem so silly now? Our worries, like what brand we wore, who saw our favorite stuffed animal, or what type of after school activities we did, were, quite frankly, stupid. The things teenagers are ashamed of are pretty lame, since they’re basically everything that a certain group doesn’t deem as popular. Yet at the time, we did not think that way at all. Those small things mattered a lot.

Hopefully, now we are better at understanding what matters and what doesn’t. I can’t speak on behalf of everyone, but I definitely do not worry about looking too childish or not cool enough at this point in my life. Instead, I just do what I like and what I want. This attitude has allowed me to stay a child forever.

We have grown up since middle and high school, and society’s expectations of us are different now than they used to be. We are supposed to act like adults. To be honest, I don’t really know what that means. But I think it means that we’re the “cool college kids” now who need to focus on their classes and careers. And even those of us who act crazy at times do so in adult-like way too, because it generally includes alcohol, which is an adult beverage. We’re kind of the group that teenagers aspire to be in their attempt to be cool.

The more years I spend studying at BC, the more pressure I receive from others (namely my parents) to be a grown-up. Yet the more pressure I receive to be a grown-up, the more it makes me want to be less of a grown-up. It’s pretty dull to always be thinking of the future, jobs, or even how to complete your major. And then I realized that despite what you may think, this is actually the perfect time to be a kid.

You see, we’ve outgrown those teenage years during which we were so concerned with trying to be cool and getting everyone’s approval. True, we still want to be viewed positively by everyone else today, but it’s a different type of approval we’re seeking. We don’t blindly want to fit it with an arbitrary group that may be considered cool. Instead, we just want to be our personal best and put in 200% of effort into everything we do. We have our own goals and standards that we must meet.

As a result, we are finally free to be our best and also be ourselves. It’s fantastic! For me, this may mean that I can aim to be nice to everyone and try my hardest to obtain good grades, while at the same time act as a five year old. I wear a panda hat during the winter, I have a plethora of stuffed animals in my dorm room, and I have a large collection of colorful pens from which I choose different ones to bring to class with me to take notes. I love stickers and building Lego sets. Furthermore, I love going to Plaster Fun Time (for those who don’t know, it’s similar to Clayroom where you get to paint three dimensional figurines) and to random toy stores. I would have never admitted to any of this when I was a teenager.

Yet now, I don’t care who knows about my childish desires. What’s wrong with reconnecting with my five year old self? It might be considered unusual by some, but I don’t see any harm in it. Instead of becoming a grownup, I’ve become a mature child. This allows me to leave the dull world of adults and always remain the colorful world of children.

However, the “mature” part is important too! What I mean by “mature” is that I know when I need to be serious, focused, and a true adult. For example, this may include internship interviews or the way I present myself at my part-time job. Yet during the rest of the time, I can do whatever I desire. It can be something childish or something more appropriately suited for my twenty-one years of age– it doesn’t really matter as long as I enjoy what I’m doing and don’t care about others’ judgments.

Many of us never truly learn to be adults, because most of us are just taller children. Embrace your inner child and find him or her with you. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to focus on the boring parts of life and be dull and serious at all times. Be the kid that you are and have a little childish fun, as long as you can successfully do that in a mature manner! Never forget that inner child because the inner child is the one who puts smiles on your and others’ faces.

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I Don’t Want to Grow Up

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