If Calvin Was a Child Today...
... There would be no Hobbes
from 
JoeUser Forums
JoeUser Forums
This is an edited/photoshopped strip I found on a friend's LiveJournal. It's an incredibly sad image for someone like me who grew up with Calvin & Hobbes. Calvin, despite his disposition (which my parents say matched mine pretty well), was the greatest example of the unlimited potential of a child. He visited far off worlds, different places in time... he had the best stuffed animal/friend in the whole wide world. He was six and he was having a good time. Sure he was a handful to his parents and teachers... but he went places with his mind that the rest of us could only dream of or see on a movie screen.
Calvin is the personification of childhood spirit, imagination and limitless potential. And I have no doubt that the strip above is exactly what would have come of him if he were a child today....
We want children to grow up so fast now. They're not allowed to be silly, they're not allowed to be bored... so we fill their days evenings and weekends with activities, sports, scouts, whatever. When they show "abnormal" traits like a very vivid imagination with imaginary friends, we medicate them to make them fit in.
Makes me think of that song by Harry Chapin song Roses are Red...
When did it become wrong for kids to be kids? When did it become necessary to medicate children? Is it some new mutation in the Human genome that wasn't there 20 years ago? When did it become horrible to just be yourself?
... I miss Hobbes.
