Whose last happy childhood ???

Ok, nothing can be scarier to a girl who doesn't want to grow up than receiving a nostalgic email entitled “the last happy childhood,” referring to her own childhood. Why? Because I am too young to be nostalgic, that's why. When my friends start sending me emails with this title, I start thinking they are telling me that our childhood is over. Really? Darn it! You know what? I have a problem with that, because I didn't check that off my calendar!

Regardless of how I organize my calendar, however, I still have a problem with that kind of email. Come on, think with me – do I think my childhood was the best ever? Yes. Do I feel sorry that children today don't have the same experiences I had? Heck, yeah! But talk to my mom! She will say she thinks her childhood was the best ever. She will say she feels sorry for my brothers and I.

In my opinion, it's amazing how many kids today don't know Indiana Jones, Jason Vorhees, Freddy Krueger! Some kids don't even don't Micheal Jackson was black! Some kids have know idea what videotapes or LPs are! Some kids don't even know what a CD or a DVD is!!! All they know are mp3s and movie downloads! They don't go to video stores or game stores – they download stuff on I-pods, I-pads, X-boxes, Play Stations!!! I mean, man! I loved going to a video store and sneaking to the horror movie section! Oh, there is one more thing kids today don't know! Kids today have no idea there was a time in which it was ok not to be politically correct. Can you imagine that kind of life?

Now ask my mom what she thinks! She wishes we could have played outside without worrying about crazy kidnappers, drivers, pollution. She wishes we could have walked everywhere and played in the streets. She wishes we could have known a time when TV had only one channel. And she wishes we didn't just know everything about everything. She thinks her childhood was the last happy childhood.

Wait a minute! But if hers was the last happy one, than what about mine? I did love my childhood! I mean, yes, I grew up locked in the eighteenth floor of a condo, in a big city. Walking anywhere was just too dangerous and the only safe thing to do was to watch TV all afternoon. Even riding my bike had to be under adult supervision, inside the gates of our condo. So, yes, my childhood, compared to my mom's, was quite a prison. But I had a very happy childhood in my own way. Regardless of what I didn't have, I had my make believe worlds, I had my invisible friends, I had super-powers, I had what every child in every time needs to have a happy childhood – imagination.

Teachers tend to say that children today don't have any more imagination because of computers. Really? Teachers used to say the same thing when I was growing up, just that they talked about TV. But I had plenty of imagination. I think TV actually helped me find even more make-believe worlds.

And I bet when my little brother grows up, he will look at his own computerized childhood and think it was the best ever – texting, virtual reality, downloads, Hannah Montana, High School Musical, blah, blah, blah. He will probably look at the kids of the future and think – poor children, they don't have what I had. He will probably think his was the last happy childhood. Wanna bet?

Your childhood was the last happy childhood – because it was the only one you had.