Not so hot on cool

I am a big fan of the unremarked milestones of childhood. When your children start singing the alternative lyrics to Christmas carols for example. Then there's the replication of things recalled from one's own childhood. I was enjoying a breakfast croissant this morning when the 6 year old came up to me with a mischievous grin:

'Give me 5'

'Up high'

'Down low'

'Too slow!' 

Followed by uproarious mocking laughter.

That one's so old I'm sure my parents were doing it in their playgrounds. 

On an unrelated note 'Give me 5' is very triggering for me as it reminds me of one of my most embarrassing courtroom moments. Some years ago I was defending a teenage girl in quite a serious case who was a complete newcomer to the criminal justice system. We got to the end of the court day, the judge had risen and I went to the back of court to explain what had taken place and what would be happening the next day. I raised my hand in parting and to my horror she mirrored me and went in for a high 5 and thus it was that I end up playing a feeble sort of a pat-a-cake with a 15 year old girl in court in full court dress.

Anyway, my morning humiliation got me thinking of the rituals and rites of childhood and in particular something that I am really not looking forward to. There is an indistinct but seminal moment in every child's progression when they suddenly become cognisant of cool. A demarcation: BC (Before Cool) and AD (Adolescent Development).

BC, much more than how babies are made, why Trump and Johnson got elected and how we are all going to live underwater, to me represents the real Eden of childhood. A state of blissful ignorance about how the rest of the world perceives you so that you can unabashedly dance like nobody's watching even when everybody is. The ingenuousness of children is their absolute number one charm without which their childishness would be completely insufferable. Seeing it give way to a self-conscious desire to fit in is like watching a beautifully plumed bird rolling in the dust so that nobody notices it.

And at the heart of this dismal process is the desire to be cool. The days, weeks, months and years that we waste in this fruitless and heartless endeavour. For me the real hallmark of full maturity is the realisation that being cool is having the courage to be true to oneself, one's interests and one's quirks. But before that moment comes there is surrender to peer pressure, concealment of identity and, worst of all, denial of passion; because nothing is less cool than being keen.

Obviously there is a balance to be struck and AD necessarily involves understanding when it's appropriate. essential even to run with the crowd but if you don't learn to be an individual you grow up to be nobody.There are many things I want my children to be: unabashed, curious, heartfelt, compassionate, genuine. Cool is definitely not one of them.