A childhood spent in clover will last a lifetime

WE WERE lying in a patch of dewy clover, my son and I, back in 2010.

Flat on our backs, hands behind our heads, staring up at the clear blue sky.

“Isn’t this cool, Dad,” he said. “Not a care in the world …”

If only.

Life’s tough.

It seems few adults survive life without having to endure some seriously overwhelming difficulties.

As M Scott Peck wrote bluntly: “Life is difficult.”

With this reality looming, most parents spend their lives attempting to train their children to be adults. Indeed, today’s kids are going to need a vast range of skills to thrive and even just survive – far more than the previous generations.

But do we, in the process, rob them of their most carefree years?

Have we forgotten that childhood is an end in itself ?

When last did you see an adult swinging gently in a hammock, humming quietly?

Or lying on the lounge floor doodling?

Or searching for a fourleafed clover?

Those delights are available to every single adult one of us. But not when the mind is consumed by stress, anxiety and pure, worn-out exhaustion.

Kids’ typical stress levels just don’t compare.

And rightly so.

Not because they’re selfish or lazy or refuse to empathise. Just because they’re kids. And long may it last.

Kids only have around 15 years of their lives to enjoy this “stress amnesty”.

So, I hereby re-commit myself to helping my three young people to enjoy every moment of their childhoods.

To protect them, in the right way, from looming adulthood. Their time will come, yes. Yes, a complex web of grown-up stuff awaits them. But – please – not yet.

No, you don’t have to clean your room right this minute …

Yes, you may have a large ice-cream at the beach.

Yes, I’ll bowl another 50 balls at you.

Yes, of course you may swim in your clothes in the river.

Yes, turn the music up.

Yes, it’s late, sure. But, damn right, let’s watch one more old Seinfeld episode together.

One of the greatest truths, for every human every born, must be: A happy childhood lasts a lifetime!

So, to my three-year-old daughter, lying on the grass next to me today: I say, in the words of the band Snow Patrol: “Let’s …

“Forget what we’re told “Before we get too old

“Show me a garden that’s bursting into life

“If I lay here

“If I just lay here

“Would you lie with me and just forget the world?”

– Murray Williams