The perfect childhood, we all yearn for it.
Your own childhood not being good enough, missing out on the things the cool and lucky kids got to experience.
Getting to play a big role in a movie, getting to play sports at an incredibly high level or going on holidays your own parents couldn’t afford.
Feeling like you missed everything, nothing being as great as the childhood that other child had.
But wouldn’t other people say that about your childhood too?
Just getting to be a normal child, away from all the fame and the immense pressure they experienced, having to work as an actor 12 hours a day or constantly feeling ‘not good enough’ when they lost a game.
The perfect childhood: a concept that doesn’t exist, not even the most famous or happy people that you look up to got to experience that, social media just makes you think they did.
So be thankful for your own childhood, because someone out there would give everything they have to get to experience your childhood.
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140,560 Literary Works • 673,435 Reviews
Hi,
I'm going to elaborate on my previous review.
This is a great piece! I love that is clear, concise, and gets the message across. My piece of advice would be to break apart your sentences. Some are longer, and I feel like breaking apart the ideas in those sentences can make your writing stronger. Example:
Here's how I would change this sentence: Just getting to be a normal child. Away from all the fame and immense pressure they experienced, working 12 hours a day, constantly feeling "not good enough".
Great job!
Hi,
This is a great piece! I love that is clear, concise, and gets the message across. My piece of advice would be to break apart your sentences. Some are longer, and I feel like breaking apart the ideas in those sentences can make your writing stronger. Great job!
I love the creativity you put in this piece. I feel how the simplicity of having your own not another expectation of your own childhood. It clearly defines how we should never be disappointed in your own childhood because it came with no expectation.
The piece has both simplicity without going extra with words. This line caught my attention since it has a flashback especially with me. How people would look at cool kids having the time of their lifetime instead of getting a way of enjoying their own. It is impressive and motivating
Hia I came here for the Checklist Challenge!~
Welcome to YWS (Or rather WriterFeed!), hope you’re doing well :3
I like how you’re not only talking about the unachievability of perfection in this one but also about FOMO, of missing out on what other (or rather hypothetical others) are experiencing (since surely the vast majority of ppl won’t get to play sports at the highest lvl etc)
I always thought it a universal experience that ppl think back fondly to their own childhood… but I guess if you are constantly comparing it to what other ppl have had… yeah, I can see how that can put the pressure on. And how it could darken your on view on the past.
I especially like the final message of this work. It’s a nice thought that someone out there would have appreciated the childhood you’ve had even if you can’t atm?
That said, I feel like the message of the poem is a bit muddled in the middle. I think with this “Just getting to be a normal child, away from all the fame and the immense pressure they experienced,” you’ve kinda locked yourself into something very unrelatable with most ppl. It feels like you could have used this section to maybe ground the poem somewhere closer to the experience of most ppl? Like bringing an example that the narrator might have missed out on but another not Top 1% person might have had?
That’s just my thoughts tho. Happy writing :3
PS: Why is Word telling me that unachievability is not a word?? It should be xp
Hi, welcome to YWS and congratulations on posting your first piece!
This is certainly an interesting concept to explore.
This isn't really a complete sentence but just fragments strung onto the sentence that comes before it. It doesn't have its own subject-verb backbone. To make it complete, omething like "Your own childhood wasn't good enough" or "You feel like your own childhood wasn't good enough, missing out on the things..." could work, as either of those has a verb (wasn't / feel) which anchors the subject to a claim. I hope that makes sense. It does read more like a string of note-to-self phrases than a polished piece, but that means there is only the potential to improve!
I think this makes a bit of an assumption. Of course, no one thinks their childhood was perfect, but some people genuinely did not have a childhood that others would want. How do people who were abused, neglected, or suffered from something like cancer - all the horrible things that could happen to a child that I would never wish that on anyone - fit into your argument? If you established in the piece that this isn't about them, maybe this would work, but I think if you're going to talk about how no childhood is perfect, you need to discuss these darker truths.
Again, this is making a big assumption. Some childhoods are ones people would give anything NOT to have. And obviously, what you are discussing is not about these, but perhaps more like my own; i had a poor family, I didn't go on holidays or have nice clothes but I had a close relationship. It feels a bit surface level, like you could scratch a lot deeper.
I like how you did use specific examples (child actors, athletes, wealthy families) to ground the abstract idea into more concrete images rather than staying philosophical. Overall, the idea is definitely relatable for a lot of people, and has a nice, hopeful message at its core, but it could definitely be refined to explore some more avenues and acknowledge that not everyone DID have a nice childhood that others would want; even if they were rich, they could still have suffered abuse.
Keep writing! Looking forward to reading more.