The World For Kids

My five year old has been constructing plans for a world for several months. A world just for kids.

It started out as a kids restaurant - where everything would be kid sized, prepared by kids, and free to kids who had no money. Kids who needed money could WORK at the restaurant if they needed to earn some.

Since that first idea, it's morphed. There is a city, there are hotels and stores. There is a railroad which takes you places in the REAL world so you can get on the kid sized railroad and go visit people who live far away. Your parents don't need to take time off of work for these trips, they can just drop you off at the kids railroad and you'll arrive safely at your destination.

He imagines kid hotels for these trips - where kids are safe and the rooms have comfy beds and the hotel restaurants serve pizza.

The stores will sell things for kids made by kids.

And the best part, as he always tells me, is if they don't have money - these kids can get what they need and do what they want for free.

I've been listening to the never-ending mental construction of this pint sized Utopia for what seems like months. Listening with a smile, and some parental pride at the creativity of it - and the kindness in my child that he would think of people with no money and include them.

Then it hits me last night that what my blond love is actually doing, is working out his frustrations with the world as it is when he constructs his Utopia. It must be frustrating to be five in a world made for adults. Everything is "no" and "later" and "not today". In Kid World, it's going to be on his schedule. It's going to be on his terms.

To be fair, the boy isn't denied much. But, I'm sure looking at the world of adults, it looks like we have it made. We have control over everything - including him. I'm sure it's frustrating.

Personally, I always sort of thought my house WAS a kids world. You'd think it was - looking at my living room.