I read an article the other day written by a disgruntled millennial about why we should forgo the kid’s table at holidays. Homeboy was super hurt over having to sit at the kid’s table and apparently it’s taken quite a toll on his life today. Until I read that article I hadn’t given this much thought, however it did pique my interest.
I thought back to all the times I sat at the kid’s table growing up – the fun we had, the trouble we created and the laughs we shared. Then it hit me. In just a little over a week I will once again take my spot at one of the fold out chairs around card table-island. Am I mad about it? Will I demand to sit with the adults? Will I enjoy the holiday season any less? Heck no!
I’ll enjoy the company of the other 20 somethings, just like I have for 21 years. We’ve grown, developed and shared many laughs together- never once feeling “excluded” or “undervalued” by the adults as suggested by the article that sparked this post.
In fact, the “grownups” didn’t care where we sat, us kids voluntarily migrated to own table and had our own conversations. Thinking about the conversations we’ve had over the years I discovered something interesting about the kid’s table.
Hear me out…
Over the years, our topics of conversation have spanned from crafting the greatest after dinner “gameplan” to how mad we were about losing our 7th grade B Team basketball game to balancing sports, clubs and academics in high school to choosing a college, major and career track, present day.
Each holiday brings a new experience, accomplishment and/or adventure for each of “kids” to share with one another. Give or take a few years, essentially we are all at the same point in our lives, expressing our successes, fears and goals with each other.
Now it’s not like these were deep conversations. Something as simple as “I want to be a lawyer when I grow up” was a goal, “I hope coach doesn’t make us run a lot after Christmas break” was a fear and “my team placed first at our speaking competition last weekend” was a success. Not mention we were saying these things while talking with our mouths full, avoiding our vegetables and arguing about who was going to win the game of horse after dinner. The point is, we could all relate to one another.
We didn’t need adults to initiate the conversation by asking us how school is going, what our favorite subject is, what we want to be when we grow up, yada, yada. We had our own creative conversations that were much more meaningful peer to peer than 20 adult eyes staring at the kid who the question was directed towards and waiting for an answer.
Of course, we talked over one another, argued, laughed and joked, but somewhere in those 20 something years of sitting at the kid’s table together, we grew up. As we advanced in our lives so did our conversations…and we have one another to thank for that.
It’s my belief that no one outgrows the kid’s table, we simply outgrow the conversations as we move through the various stages in our lives.
On that note, I’ll hold out for a while on joining the “adults”…us kids have a lot to talk about that the adults simply wouldn’t understand 😉
So this is me signing off from the kid’s table, Happy Thanksgiving!
The Unconventional Millennial 