The end of innocence...?

Someone showed me this Calvin And Hobbes comic yesterday. It's quite poignant, and really quite depressing too. It made me a bit sad to be honest.

Firstly, for those of you who aren't fans of Calvin And Hobbes, the strip might not mean much and you might not gather quite why I find it quite unnerving. Secondly, those of you who are Calvin And Hobbes fans will probably be relieved to know that it is not a Bill Watterson original, but has been doctored by someone.

Apparently a lot of people hold up Calvin as some poster child for ADD... I think that is a bit misguided really. Calvin is perfectly capable of getting engrossed in things and concentrating on them, it's just that the things he throws himself into are not homework, housework etc. I think it would rather devalue Calvin to say that all his antics were a product of ADD, be it a disease or whatever. I think it also makes light of ADD to be honest - I don't suppose ADD would be the big crisis it is if it were just a case of kids acting like Calvin.

In truth, I think Calvin is just an imaginative 6 year old having fun. He doesn't like schoolwork. He's a pain for the babysitter. He plays in a vivid make believe world with his tiger. Are any of these things at all out of character for the average young child? I think that is what scares me about the comic - that we might try to "medicate" away our sense of fun, our imagination, our youthful exuberance and innocence. I hate to think that we would try to crush that in ourselves or our children.

I think the world needs a bit more Calvin in it.