-Other children, re: their willfulness, viciousness and vindictiveness
-Being ostracized for wearing the wrong apparel
-Being in any way noticeably different, especially in ways related to any sort of vulnerability
-Global Warming
-The Rapture, Judgment Day, Apocalypse
-People believing in The Rapture who will kill them
-People disbelieving in The Rapture who will kill them
-The rise of other superpowers
-Corporate hegemony
-Terrorists
-Wild animals
-Strangers
-Statistically, family
-That everyone they love and rely upon will go away
-Personal mortality
-General mortality
-The Meaning of Life
-Being gradually forced to become self-sufficient
-Being gradually forced to bow to society
-Emotional trauma from the duel between the forces of mandatory self-sufficiency and obligations to social structures
-That a B- will hurt their GPA
-Getting into a good school
-Getting into a good college
-Getting into a good Masters program
-No openings in the job market regardless of their education level
-Finite materials in an increasingly demanding global market
-Dangerously lax environmental protection laws
-Dangerously lax factory standards
-Syringes in sealed soda cans
-Sugar and preservatives in everything
-That watching any sort of viewing screen, including all those that entertain them, is gradually turning them blind
-Aneurysms
-Anxiety issues
-Scoliosis
-Early onset Alzheimer’s
-The multiple kinds of diabetes
-Sex, re: its performance, who you want it with, its reflection on your character, diseases contractible from it and assorted regrets experienced immediately afterward
-The various diseases you can contract from far more mundane activities than sex
-Cancers triggered by environmental factors, of which they’re largely ignorant
-Cancers triggered by genetic factors, over which they have absolutely no control
-That all their teeth will be bloodily shoved out of their mouths by a second pair
-Learning to operate an expensive, fragile mode of transport that runs on combustible fuel
-Moving out
-Maintaining a job
-Affordable healthcare
-Supporting relatives
-Looming adulthood
-Looking back on this one day and thinking it was so much better than the rest of their lives
such a true list...
ReplyDeleteThe nice thing is that when you reach the age of sixty you can do whatever the hell you want.
ReplyDeleteI plan to celebrate my 60th by yelling at all of those anxiety laden kids to get off my lawn.
Tragically true.
ReplyDeleteThis one made me smile: That all their teeth will be bloodily shoved out of their mouths by a second pair
-Looming adulthood - I'm still worried about this one.
ReplyDeleteThis post may be a tad on the morbid side, you know. And when you put it this way, oh hell, any way you put it, I'm so glad to be over 40. My worries are way fewer; losing the function of my bowels or bladder, forgetting my own name, being forced to share a room in a retirement home with my husband. I mean really, haven't we spent enough time together?
ReplyDeleteStacey
This about sums it up. But they do have something to look forward to as well. Me, I've been practicing at being the perfect old grouch for years. I'm going to be GREAT at it!
ReplyDeleteHmm, I seem to have crossed one or two of these when I was younger. Had most of them down, though.
ReplyDelete