What 4-year-olds can teach us all
What all adults can learn from a four-year-old
Ihave been thinking a lot recently about when it is that we lose the desire to move manically, like whirling dervishes and Tasmanian Devils. In part, this is because I spend a lot of time with a four-year-old, telling her to “please, just for a minute, SIT STILL. Sit. Still. S-T-I-L-L. It’s not great for Mummy when you wake up in the morning and decide to act as a particularly energetic alarm clock and jump on her for 15 minutes until she gets up, wailing ‘I give in, TAKE WHATEVER YOU WANT’. Be more like Daddy when he gets home from work and becomes at one with the sofa for several hours. Do you see anyone else in this restaurant trying to eat their lunch standing on the table? Have you ever seen an adult running around with a cucumber in their hand wailing ‘I ASKED FOR CHOCOLATE!’ (Apart from that unfortunate incident with your uncle the other week, but let’s agree to forget about that. He was tired.) Now, please, just for 10 seconds, can you just SIT properly at the table. Ten, nine, eight, GAH!”
I feel so lethargic in comparison to my daughter, Edie. Without the spectre of public humiliation for failing to complete a marathon hanging over me, I am now finding it hard to motivate myself to get moving further than a paltry 5k once or twice a week. Edie puts me to shame. “Come on Mummy,” she says, shooting off across the park: “You are a runner, after all!’ (Such was the all-encompassing nature of marathon training in our house, she is now convinced this is my job, which is fine in the comfort of our own home, but not so much when I go to collect her from a play date and the parent looks confused because they are expecting an athlete.) I love how active Edie is, how much she wants to move, and it’s made me wonder if I should stop telling her to sit still; if I should actually be encouraging her to do handstands on the table. Why, in this sedentary, obese world am I trying to get her to move less? Instead, shouldn’t I transport myself back 33 years and climb the nearest tree?
I was reminded of this when, in a characteristic moment of laziness, I sat down to watch TV this week, and found myself glued a Channel 4 documentary Old People’s Home for 4-Yearolds. It’s not often I bother with any sort of “factual” TV on this channel, if only because I thought it long ago abandoned to shows about embarrassing bodies and where to find them; but this gem of a show had me completely hooked. The premise was simple: a nursery was added to a retirement home in Bristol, with 10 four-year-olds coexisting happily with 10 pensioners for six weeks, in an experiment to see what happened when the generations mixed. The results were magical.
It was the kind of television that left you grinning broadly for hours afterwards. It was wonderful to watch Hamish, an octogenarian who lost his leg in an accident at the age of 14 and had since led a solitary life with very little contact with children. Within three weeks, he had all but forgotten about his disability and was roaring affectionately at the pre-schoolers in a game of Sleeping Lions. If you are feeling low, I beg you to go and watch it.
And as I sat on the sofa taking it all in, I came to the conclusion that the very best age to be a human is four. Three is a fretful time on account of the fact you are still unaware that it is a bad idea to run into roads; by five you’re in the system and your parents have got you learning Mandarin during your downtime. But four? Four is perfect. It is powerful. It is the dream.
You can have conversations, eat jelly, write your name, count to a reasonable number and ride a bike. You have all the best bits of being an adult, without any of the low self-esteem, the issues, the worries about how you are going to pay the mortgage.
You haven’t yet started school, so you are unencumbered by worries about reports and test results. You still get to sleep 12 hours a night and everything seems new and incredible, even snails. (“They have their house on their back… that’s AMAZING!”) You have no concept of things such as “Brexit” or “the Kardashians”. You have no responsibilities. You go through life only ever bringing people joy, and if someone ever gets cross, it is easy to get them back on side: just throw your arms around said person and tell them you love them, while unashamedly complimenting their dress.
So the next time you find yourself despairing of the world and all the people in it, channel your inner four-year-old instead. Kick off your shoes, dance on the table, demand chocolate ice cream. If what you want from life is more, then for goodness sake, be more four.