127-03-12-2009

Little Kids Get It!
By W. Owen Thornton
Or Purple Bear-Paw Boy!

I wear purple, University of Western Ontario Bear Paw mittens and I think they’re about human kindness.  Little kids get it!  Wherever I go, when they see the mittens, I watch their eyes light up.  They can’t take their eyes off them!  Sometimes it seems like they want to point it out to their parents, but you can see it in their faces: they don’t bother because they don’t think their parents will get it either.

So if little kids know what brings them joy, why is it that adults and teens don’t?  It’s all about the supposed-to’s, and the not-supposed-to’s I guess.  We’re supposed to grow up.  We’re supposed to become sensible!  And because of that we’re supposed to be like everyone else who knows we’re supposed to grow up and become sensible and then if that weren’t enough we suffer from peer pressure!  And we’re not supposed to do embarrassing stuff.  And we’re not supposed to act like little kids anymore.

But the thing is, when my mittens bring so much joy and human kindness towards others, I can’t resist wearing them.  I see the looks on the faces of my fellow (and much younger) university students faces.  Some smile sardonically.  Some roll their eyes, but they secretly wish they could wear them and some give a look of disgust.  I do it for the smiles.  I do it because I love the colour.  I do it because they’re neat looking.  And now, I wear them because they bring smiles to people.  But some people out there are judging me and those who do are being unkind!

And these mittens are more than fun!  They’re also smexy.  I know that because I bought a pair for a 14-year old girl, who upon seeing them on me before Christmas, thought it would be cool to receive a pair for the festive season.  Her problem was that it just wasn’t cool to wear them to school!  Anywho, my 14-year old girl eventually wore her mittens to school on the coldest day of the year because her mom made her and her friends thought they were smexy.  Now that I have it on good authority from a selective group of 14-year-old girls that these purple mittens are smexy, I have even more reasons to wear them!  By the way smexy means they are smoking hot!

I don’t know where adulthood went so far off the rails with its shoulds and should nots.  It has been made clear to me by some that purple bear paw mittens are not cool or adult (enough), but that they are in fact stupid.  Really?  I can also tell you how little I care about this attitude towards my mittens.  I live for the smiles they bring people (children), and because of that, I can overcome the few folk who’ll offer negative comments.  If becoming an adult means I can no longer wear them and if that means I have to sacrifice some human kindness along the way, I will not submit to this pressure.

Little kids know about joy and neat stuff!  They know bear paw mitts are fun and cool and that purple isn’t a colour you see on outerwear all that often and that this also makes them cool.  They know what makes them happy.  They are instinctive about it.  And as we’ve said before human kindness starts with the self and works outwards.  So if you want to be kind to others, kindness starts at home and that means wearing … on some occasions, bear paw mittens!
I’d like to know where we got the attitude that we should behave in certain ways and that if we do that makes us an adult.  Should I list all the ways that adults behave badly in order to balance the scales here?  Don’t make me.  It would be unkind!

Cheers

Purple Bear-Paw Boy