Goodies, baddies, and ice cream: the dangerous loss of innocence.

I’m old enough to be unable to remember what it felt like to be me as a child. Sure I can recall events, but my perception of the world as a kid has ebbed away over the passage of time. My ability to experience utter wonderment, pure emotion, naivety, and steely selfishness have been tempered with containment, reality, and a brutal realisation that life truly sucks sometimes. As a dad to Lucy and Adam – both now carving out their own independent lives – I was able to observe what I had once been like, but even then, I was still unable to fully relive my own childhood feelings. I guess the primary responsibility of being a parent deterred any meeting of minds, as eating nothing but ice cream, drawing over the walls with crayons, refusing to eat vegetables, and denying that I had, in fact, soiled myself was no longer common ground. I also had other things to occupy my headspace, including a full-time job, hefty mortgage, and all the other deep shit of being grown up. Then a truly remarkable life change occurred, rekindling my connection with my long-lost emotional spirit: Arthur and his sister Darcie.

Holding Arthur as a newborn to parents Emma and Ruairi, I initially felt lost, awkward, and afraid. This small precious bundle was totally reliant on the adults around him ─ and I couldn’t even remember to put the bins out, so I was probably more of a risk to him! But unbeknown to me, at that precise moment, I had crossed an event horizon. Free of most of the shackles of my earlier adulthood, I was once again able to look at life through the prism of childhood innocence. Admittedly this was a vicarious experience, but nonetheless I voluntarily and enthusiastically accepted the invite.

As Arthur grew, our bond belied the significant age gap. I loved being a child again, and Arthur, and two years later Darcie, gave me the perfect cover. Making up rude songs, giggling at almost anything and everything, playing cops and robbers, relentless pretending ─ and so much more ─ encouraged me to celebrate my own lost innocence. The beauty of simplicity is, frankly, breathtaking. The ability to once again categorise with ease was compelling and joyful: goodies and baddies, nice and horrible, and all other antonyms in between.

Then a curved ball came my way ─ Arthur’s circumstances changed; he started school. I knew that this natural and foreseeable milestone would change things, but I became acutely aware that this trigger point may be where we all commence our farewell ceremony to innocence. This ultimately led me to a series of questions: how important is innocence in our development, what perils await us if we totally abandon this life force, and does such purity of thought have any place beyond childhood?

The formative period, from birth to eight years of age, is the most crucial stage of our development since this period represents the most intensive and rapid neurobiological growth phase. As medical researcher Olaniyi Musediq so eloquently puts it, “The type of exposure a child has during the formative years determines the kind of connections in their brain, which will be a blueprint for the rest of their life.” So, in terms of personality, what you see of me today, and for that matter, every other post eight-year-old, is crafted during this window of opportunity.

Many psychological studies unsurprisingly conclude that formal education is one of the key aggressive forces unleashed upon our innocence, as it brings the enforced consumption of knowledge. In the United Kingdom, as I suspect is true across the majority of the western world, this indoctrinated wisdom is intentionally skewed towards the goal of attaining a job. Employment within an environment that creates wealth, albeit the majority of that endeavour is banked by the super-rich who control the economic leavers that set the educational script. In other words, we join the rat race. Only recently the British Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, publicly championed the attainment of mathematics, leading the excited Children’s Commissioner for England, Dame Rachel de Souza, to gush, “Having a good grasp on numbers is helpful at all stages of life and can open the door to some fascinating and rewarding careers.” Yes, careers working endless hours for very rich people like Mr Sunak.

I vividly remember wanting to do A level Geography. I loved the patient romance associated with mother earth’s continual reshaping of our beautiful world, with – in my opinion ─ ox-bow lakes epitomising the pinnacle of nature’s engineering. But no, my dad knew better, and I embarked upon the educational equivalent of extreme sadomasochism: pure and applied mathematics (as separate subjects) and physics ─ according to him, the country would always need scientists. I hated it and eventually limped out with an E grade pass in combined mathematics. Looking back, many of my school friends, who didn’t attain anywhere close to the bundle of certificates that I did, nonetheless went on to create an enviable lifestyle from the often-mooted riskier pathway of self-employment or starting their own businesses. The cornerstone of this route is creativity and imagination, driven by desire and fuelled by – you guessed it – innocence. If you doubt this assertion, consider the plethora of college dropouts who have gone on to shape the modern world: Bill Gates, Mark Zukerberg, and Walt Disney, to name but a handful.

One of the true superpowers of innocence is the element of curiosity. On average, children ask one hundred and seven questions per hour, yet as we enter adulthood, we are given educational tools to circumnavigate this process ─ analytical models and theoretical shortcuts that make us less questioning and more reliant on the knowledge we have been given. In a world so heavily influenced by social media, this process can be easily manipulated, feeding our not so curious minds to accept – as fact – what we are spoon fed. Innocence can often be our saviour!

Pablo Picasso once said, “It takes a very long time to become young,” and this sage observation perfectly captures my own journey back to innocence. I write about the stuff of life that puzzles, surprises, and – at times – overwhelms me, but for a great chunk of my adult life this critical essence had been almost kicked out of me ─ until Arthur and Darcie weaved their magic and made me begin to imagine once again.

This reawakening has also allowed me to better answer the questions I framed at the beginning of this meander (another favourite geological term). Innocence is a fundamental element in our development, particularly in those vital formative years, as it hones the mastery of asking questions and reduces the likelihood of being deceived. Abandoning this human shield is hazardous, since it strips away this safeguard required to combat the shit show of life events that ultimately seek us out as we venture, untethered, into the pressure cooker of existence. Purity of thought in later life is a tough one; if I imagine Arthur and Darcie’s consciousness to be presently brilliant white, their exposure to the darker aspects of life will inevitably create a hue of grey. I have realised though, with the help and guidance of my two mates, that this lifeforce can be gloriously rediscovered.

In the meantime, I won’t mind in the slightest if I have to go on the Fairy Tale Brook ride at Legoland six times in one day or play the poo-poo song on a loop in the car. In his innocence, Arthur will also be a Notts County club mascot against AFC Wimbledon on Saturday 9th March 2024 ─ without a true concept of what it means to me but accepting without question and brimming with pride.

Watch out Disney World – our tickets for April are already booked ─ two innocent kids and one adult kid will be having a ball!

Thanks Arthur and Darcie for helping me realise that I never really did like being a grown up.

© Ian Kirke 2023 & all photographs reproduced with the kind permission of mum Emma Ellis.

@ianjkirke