The Miss Behaved Inner Child
Unrepentant and relentlessly responsible adults shake their collective heads when they hear this and ask politely that the Miss Behaved inquirers stop begging the question.
"What am I doing about it?" They snarl. "I’m too busy worrying about what I’m doing to worry about what I’m doing. I have mortgages to pay and jobs to attend and IPO’s to launch. I am the ultimate grown up and too busy and mature to entertain such self-exploratory questions such as what am I doing now that I’m grown up? "
Which is why this is the perfect Miss Behaved question to ask. It annoys and provokes and we’re not going to stop asking it until we get an answer.
This particular Miss Behaved question is not about a career per se, although the question may help a Miss Behaved career. It’s not about serious psychological because Miss behaved people, as a rule, eschew the serious. It’s about remembering back when, and doing something about it right now.
For example, one Miss Behaved woman remembers the day she stood in the middle of her parents suburban home and thought, when I grow up, I’m going to live in a tree house, a great big tree house and the floor will be dirt so I never have to vacuum.
Another Miss Behaved man remembers a particularly tense evening centered on a brussel sprout issue and thinking to himself, when I grow up I’m going to buy only food I like, not this yucky food.
Another, albeit younger, Miss Behaved girl distinctly remembers thinking, just last night, that when she grows up, she’s moving out of the family house and in with her boyfriend.
A Miss Behaved mother, who is already in touch with her inner five-year-old, writes that she is thrilled with the fact that she can play house every day. Her house used to be the extra card table covered with the third best blanket from the guest room. Three pieces of plastic fruit represented the kitchen. Now she owns a real house. She can paint the walls of her house orange, display her ragged paper back collection in the dining room, hang a singing bass in the hall and ignore sensible advice on carpet. She has actually achieved the status of "the Mother" and thus can boss everyone else in the house. Plus she married a man willing to play "the father" (many men will not stay for this game, and should be treasured if they do (see Being the Second Wife)) and the two of them produced real "children." She delights in her house every day.
Another Miss Behaved man loves to play store. How magical, he explained, it is to walk down the aisles of the supermarket and pick out only what you want and drop it into real cart that he can steer himself without having to take turns with his brother. When he wants fruit rolls-up and ding dongs, he, now the grown up with the check book and a pocked full of coupons he always remembers to collect, but never remembers to pull out of his pocket in time, can purchase as many as he wants. The other our Miss Behaved friend realized that his inner child had been whining about Oreo’s all afternoon. So he purchased a package and ate half in the car because that’s what he promised to do when he grew up.
Another Miss Behaved woman writes that she remembers desperately wanting to spend the night with her boyfriend. She wanted to be with him 24/ 7 (just like the Beach Boys song, although they described their longing in more words than just 24/7) What a luxury, to be with someone you love all day and all night! Our Miss Behaved romantic turned the boyfriend into her husband, but never forgot to appreciate that she has him in her bed night after night, just like she always wanted to do when she grew up.
One Miss Behaved CEO wrote in and said he remembered playing "office" with his sister. He also remembered she refused to be the secretary so they had to hire an imaginary one for the both of them. Today he plays office everyday. He has his own paper clips and stapler, he sends memo s and makes phone calls, just as he did when he was seven. He even hired a real secretary who screens the calls from his sister.
Miss Behaved people realize that since they are grown ups for so long it seems a shame to not take advantage of the situation. Ask yourself these Miss Behaved questions; what was your job when you left the card table "house"? Why aren’t you playing that right now? What did you furnish the card table house with? Why isn’t that in your house right now? What kind of hot wheels car did you consistently choose to shoot down the ramp of death, hit the loop of perpetuity, hurl through the ring of fire and ricochet off the living room wall (there are still dents, just ask your mother)? Why aren’t you driving a reasonable facsimile of that favorite car?
Why are we asking you to change your whole life based on possibly faulty memories from your childhood? Don’t despair, Miss Behaved advice always comes with a quick fix.
Remember what you use to say when you were a kid? "You’re not the boss of me." Now you are the boss, what do you want to do? Here’s a Miss Behaved list to get you started:
Watch TV all day.
Call in sick even if you aren’t very sick.
See a movie with no educational value what so ever and make sure it’s rated R for sex, violence and swearing.
Read a book all day, even at the table and even in the bathtub.
Eat breakfast for dinner.
Eat ice cream for breakfast.
Color on the windowsill.
Have a tea party with your friends using your mother’s good china.
Eat Captain Crunch Cereal.
Spend 50% of your pay check on baseball cards.
Make cookies and eat all the dough.
Many Miss Behaved people are also trading around on e-bay for this very reason, the "I always wanted that since I was a child but my parents wouldn’t buy it for me" reason. It’s a good Miss Behaved reason if there ever was one because it has no practical value at all, except to make the owner happy and mysteriously satisfied.
Miss Behaved people are always mysteriously satisfied. And today they share part of their secret.
Which is amazing really, since most Miss Behaved people vowed that when they grew up, they would no longer share. And you can’t make them.