Whatever happened to...

What ever happened to being a kid?  I ask this because when I think back to when I was between the ages of 12 and 18, I had fun.  Yeah I had my share of boyfriends, homework, grounding (don't even get me started on that one I have more than enough experience with that to last me 6 lifetimes), chores, babysitting, and not doing good in school...but I had so much fun, school dances, trick or treating, running around the neighborhood, sleeping over at friends houses, friends sleeping over at mine, more mom's than I knew what to do with (every one of my friends mom, was my mom too and didn't have a problem telling me that I needed to help with stuff around the house since I was there long enough to create the mess, and told me when It was time for me to go home, and my mom was their mom too, she had no problem telling them what they should and shouldn't do).

The reason I am blogging about this is because recently my 12 year old Taylor (and my 16 year old Haley did this last year and the year before) was telling me about the Halloween dance at school (when I was in middle school I so would have been the first person to buy my ticket), and how no one was going to go to the dance because it was "lame" COME ON PEOPLE!?  You are 12 and 13 years old!  What is wrong with dressing up in your costume and hanging out with your friends at a school dance?!  My friends and I went to every single dance (that I wasn't grounded for), we went to the awesome ones (ROTC Ball, Homecoming, Sadie Hawkins-my fav because it gave me another excuse to ask a guy out) and the not so awesome ones (can't even remember which ones weren't awesome, even if the theme wasn't that great, they all rocked).  Haley was telling me that she wasn't going to her prom because school dances are "lame"  Prom???  Really?????  Why can't kids just be kids and enjoy the time they have?  It took Haley 2 years to get to a point where she is involved in anything at school and only because we pushed her to join Key Club last year, and pushed her to join band halfway through school last year.  Now I hate that she missed out on so much fun in high school.  Now she is never home (not complaining because she is doing great things with her school and her education), finally after telling her for almost 2 years that high school was going to be the best 4 years of her life, she gets it.  Why can't kids just be kids?  Why can't they just have fun and enjoy going to school dances, just be silly and run around the block with their friends making crazy faces and jumping all over the place?  Why does everything have to be so serious?  What happened to kids?  Did we do this to them?  Did we make them want to grow up so fast?  Did we make them have to grow up so fast?  Why can't they just be 12?  Why can't they just be 8?  Why can't they just be 15 or 16?  Why can't they just play outside and ride a bike and dress up for halloween?  What happened to our kids??