The Absence of Childhood

Dear Mummy

Hannah was out on a date today. i'm nearly 20 and i can't get a date, but my 7 yr old cousin has them queuing up round the corner.

anyway it was all very sweet and he gave her an 'i love you' card and took her to the cinema and for dinner and gave her a kiss in the car.......

but i wonder are we encouraging our children to grow up too fast? childhood is a wondrous gift that should not be thrown away so lightly. at the beginning of Stephenie Meyer's 'Breaking Dawn' there is the following quotation:

"Childhood is not from birth to a certain age and at a certain age
The child is grown, and puts away childish things.
Childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies"
Edna St. Vincent Millay

in this world today there are too many children, who by this definition have lost their childhood. it is prominent in less economically developed counties where children lose parents to childbirth, HIV, meningitis, influenza. it is more common than we think, even here on our own streets.

we don't like to think of death even as adults, and we shun from the thought of a child living with bereavement.

illness and disability can give way to bereavement of childhood - too many young carers have lost their rights as children due to the daily struggles of caring for family members.

Comic relief is out to help many children in situations like these. its aim is to give children back some of that innocence and childhood that they deserve and have so cruelly lost.

according to Millay's definition of childhood, mine ended at nine years of age when i lost my Gran and you. i am glad to say that although i may have had to grow up, i have not grown old. for i am still safe in the arms of those who love me - my Daddy will always see me as his little girl

Heather xoxoxox