28 June

We tend to think of kids as adults-to-be, as if we adults shape the world and then kids grow up and start shaping it too. But to me kids start shaping the world in all sorts of ways we hardly notice, while they're still kids. For example: - how many of your current circle of friends did you meet because they're somehow connected with your kids, like parents of their friends or parents of kids in a sporting team? Kids play a huge role in shaping our adult social lives - it's known that most changes in the language we speak originate from kids. For example the Australian accent is thought to have evolved (and continues to evolve) in schools, between children - how much spending in society is shaped by the needs of kids? Not enough I'd say, but they form a huge portion of family budgets, and also a huge market for companies. Kids determine how a lot of a country's money is spent - kids largely determine shifts in musical and fashion styles - kids activate that part of us that is still the kid we once were, psychologists recognise that the stages we live as we get older never actually go away, they sit there as layers that can be accessed again at any time. By doing this it makes us fundamentally different adults.