Hot potatoes and dinosaur nuggets.

I buy Dino nuggets. They are yummy and fun and I love them. However, I do not love the looks I get every single time I buy them. The most common response is, "How old are you?" When I say 16, everyone just smirks.  Only once has someone actually smiled at me. He was 17, and we high fived. It was pretty excellent.

I know that I've done a post on maturity before, but this issue just keeps coming up. Now, I realize that I am not the most mature 16-year-old on the face of the Earth, but I'm not a toddler either. Anyone should be allowed to buy Dino nuggets, bouncy balls, and a yo-yo without strange looks...right? I think so. I think that there wouldn't be so many boring adults in the world if people didn't thrust maturity on them like a hot potato that they can't keep passing. It burns, and no matter how many times you try to toss it up to make the pain go away, it always comes back down.

The maturity potato is something everyone has passed to them. Mine was passed when I was 6. Do you want to know what I did with that potato after a few years of burned hands? I let it drop straight to the ground; I shed my facade of maturity so that I could actually enjoy life again. I made mashed potatoes out of maturity, using combat boots to stomp out my frustration. (No, I didn't really stomp on a potato. It's a metaphor. Stay with me haha.)

The other day, I was at O'Charley's and I saw a little girl come in with a cute little dress and her hair in a bow.  That did not bother me (no matter how much I wanted to give that little girl my old Kiss t-shirt). No, what did bother me was that she was about five or six tops and as soon as she sat down, she placed her napkin delicately in her lap with her pinkies out. She refused to drink out of a kid cup. I heard her say, very articulately, "I would like a small glass of water please."

Some of you may be thinking, "Awww. She is a little girl with table manners." Trust me, you wouldn't have thought that if you saw her. Her mom scolded her three times for kicking her feet absentmindedly under the table. I saw her kicking her feet. It was a small little back and forth motion. Do you want to know what her mom said? "Mature young ladies sit properly." I am not even kidding.

That really made me mad. Now, I know that I am not a mother and that yes, kids do need to learn table manners. But getting mad at a little girl for something as small as kicking her feet as they dangled in the air? They weren't even kicking quickly. That's messed up. I've never seen Toddlers in Tiaras, but that is probably exactly what it is like.

I am not a mom yet, but I almost cried when I saw that little girl leave the restaurant. She didn't smile. Every time I looked at her across the isle from me, she was unhappy. Her little eyes were...almost lifeless. As she left, her shoulders slumped and her head dropped, I had never seen anything like it. The last thing I heard from that little girl and her mother was this: "Stand up right now. Walk with your head up. Shoulders back." She replied in her small, high pitched voice, "Yes ma'am."

That broke my heart into so many tiny little pieces. There she was, one of the most adorable little girls I had ever seen, and she looked like she was aged. She looked like she was an adult trapped in the body of a little girl.

It doesn't happen with just girls. I've seen parents tell their sons, "Stop crying. Big boys don't cry."

Am I the only one who thinks that is absolutely ridiculous? The kids are not the issue. The parents play just as large of a role, if not larger. I am sick of it. I am sick of hot potato maturity. I am sick of seeing little kids without smiles. I am sick of seeing little adults at the age of six.

I am 16, and I am still pretty immature. I love that about myself. I love that I enable myself to enjoy things in life that I was supposed to have grown out of. I am mature and immature.

I've talked about keeping your own immaturity and childhood alive before, but now I am telling you to help keep someone else's childhood alive. You'd be surprised at how much of a drastic change a yo-yo can make when the person just lets loose.

Keep A Child Alive is an organization which has the purpose of providing treatment, support, and love to families affected by HIV/AIDS. My own personal campaign is the same words, with a different meaning. Keep a child alive. We are all children. We should remember that.

If you would like to contribute to Keep A Child Alive, the website is below. It is an excellent cause, and it is a cause that is very close to my heart.

http://keepachildalive.org/