When Did Your Childhood End?

[The Sevenshot Kid]

We all had that moment in our lives when our childhood officially ended. Whether it was the death of a loved one, a loss of faith, or plain old disillusionment we've all experienced it. I was reminiscing about the comics I used to read when I was younger and I remembered my moment.

For me that moment was December 28, 2007 when I read The Amazing Spider-Man #545. That was the final issue of One More Day. At 12 years old that one issue managed to devastate me. I've always been a geeky kid so it's only natural that I looked up to Peter Parker. I grew up on several of the animated series, some of the comics, and the movies. Whereas Superman laid the foundation for me on how to be a good person, Peter Parker taught me how to be a great person in the face of adversity. And there was Mary Jane. The one person that understood Pete and was always there for him.

I loved the marriage. The fact that MJ was the one person who would truly stand by Peter through thick and thin was something that really resonated with me. Even though I hated the erasure of the marriage, I hated how and why it happened. Peter made a mistake and he refused to own up to it. He copped out. I was ruined (until I got back to Ultimate Spider-Man, that is).

What's yours?

[Kyanbu The Legend]

Mines ended in 2001 following the death of the pokemon craze.

That was a pretty big blow to my heart... even though Pokemon has established itself as a strong franchise whose card game is still in the top 5 world TCG/CCG/OCG rankings. And the games still sell milllions in record time.

Though thinking about it now, my childhood never really ended so much as matured a lot. Heck I was freakishly well behaved and mature for a kid in my day. >_>;

[rpgdemon]

What, it was supposed to end?


Edit: Like, I seriously don't understand people when they're all, "I WANNA GET BACK TO CHILDHOOD", or all, "Well, here's the point where you're totally an adult now and not a child". Just straight up don't understand it.

[Doc ock rokc]

In some ways my childhood ended quite early.
in others My childhood is still there.
If you mean when the shattering of magic and innocence happened, it would be when I was 4. On the day my father threw my mother down the stairs and she left, and started a divorce that divided the family for years. It took me years to understand what was going on.

[RickZarber]

2007 [...] 12 years old God dammit, stop being more than a decade younger than me! Knock that shit off!

[The Sevenshot Kid]

In some ways my childhood ended quite early.
in others My childhood is still there.
If you mean when the shattering of magic and innocence happened, it would be when I was 4. On the day my father threw my mother down the stairs and she left, and started a divorce that divided the family for years. It took me years to understand what was going on.

Well now I feel like a dick for losing my childhood over Spider-Man. That's fucked up that happened to you so young.

[TDK]

Your childhood only ends if you let it.

[Token]

Raped when I was six because my friend's big brother thought I had a crush on him. Thought he could "fuck the faggot out of me." I didn't even understand what gay was, until the next year, and never really came to terms with my own sexuality until I was seventeen.

But I guess my childhood died in June of 2009 when my Pokemon Yellow cartridge stopped saving.

[RickZarber]

Also, serious answer:

I was raised Christian, and stayed fairly religious until Junior year of high school or so.

I was laying awake late at night in a trailer in the middle of a field of some family farm in Pennsylvania in, like, 2002 or something, and suddenly seemed to wrap my head around the whole "someday I am going to die" thing for the first time. Like, total lizard-brain, full body paralyzing fear attack freakout, that kinda reaction.

Couldn't ever manage to truly "believe" after that. I consider that the true loss of my childhood innocence. Or at least the one moment I can trace things back to.

[BitVyper]

Nothing ends, Adrian. Nothing ever ends.

[Premmy]

Raped when I was six because my friend's big brother thought I had a crush on him. Thought he could "fuck the faggot out of me." I didn't even understand what gay was, until the next year, and never really came to terms with my own sexuality until I was seventeen.

But I guess my childhood died in June of 2009 when my Pokemon Yellow cartridge stopped saving.

Um, damn.
I'm sorry I can't come up with something better, but damn.

[Ecks]

Ten years old, step-sister took advantage of my total cluelessness about anything related to sex and introduced me to it a couple of years before I was ready. That has been the basis for a couple of bad relationships in the past eight years (though not responsible for this last one... nope, that one's kind of both mine and ex's fault).

The event that culminated in me having mommy issues? Mom divorced Dad when I was five, left the house when I was six, and Dad stopped "changing my diapers" so to speak. So almost every relationship I've had since I have issues related to needing her to "mom" me sometimes, which is one of the reasons ex cited as why she can't stand to be with me anymore.

Jesus, I'm not as bad as Token, but boy do I have some serious complexes.

[Thadius]

I've tried. Many times. To never let my inner child die. I've tried to keep that inner sense of fun and joy and youthfulness around forever. To never let my mind stop seeing wonder and never let my brain stop imagining new things.

But if we're gonna be honest here, my childhood died when I was ten. My inner child was put on life support and was stabbed many times since, but I've tried hard to keep it alive.

After all, it was only my grandmother's wake. Surely the death of the family member I loved most at that time that I was not immediately related to couldn't possibly be a life changing event. Nor could finding out how much of a total bitch my surviving grandmother was, including telling me to stop crying because she couldn't deal with it.

It's mostly a void in my memory after arriving at the wake anyways, so no harm, no foul.

Although I gotta say Token, I do feel damn sorry for you. Too bad Hallmark doesn't make a 'Sorry you were raped' card. Even then, it'd be late anyways, so I'd need a belated one. Again, pretty sure they don't do that sort of card. Though if they did, I'd get one for you.

[Seil]

End?

[Amake]

I remember it quite clearly. The day when I put away childish things I was fifteen. I ran out into the night with a friend to race garbage bags down a snow covered hill for hours. I thought about how incredible it was to be grown up, to have the courage to ignore the inner voice that cried, "Stop it! There are people watching! Stop acting like a child, you'll embarrass us!"

PS. Since we're sharing traumatizing sexual encounters, a true story: When I was eight there was a bully in my class who mopped the floor with me in school and then treated me to luxuries such as exotic candies and Nausica' of the Valley of the Wind on VHS at his home, where mom made me go in order to be friends with him. Maybe not an important part of the story. But anyway the implied threat of violence meant I had no choice when he wanted to play "Let's give each other oral sex". The next day in school at the first provocation I punched him in the stomach so hard he passed out, so I guess on some level it must have changed me. Not that I think it can compare to Token or Ecks' experiences, I really feel for you guys.

[The Sevenshot Kid]

Since so many of you have been truthful I feel I need to give a real answer. It was my first day of school after moving to California and my mom was deployed on an aircraft carrier. Then two planes collided with the World Trade Center. I was so fucking afraid even though I didn't have a clue what was going on. My dad was scared so that was enough to worry me.

Over night I was six years old and living in fear. Not long after that my grandmother died and I got into fights that culminated in me almost stabbing a kid. It killed me to do that to my parents. I had to learn responsibilty so that I would never do that again. I really do have the greatest parents in the world because they've always been there for me.

I had another moment around the time my dog and grandfather died. Decided to read the bible cover to cover and I found nothing there for me. So I reached out to church, thinking they would show me what I was missing. Didn't find it. So I had to find a way to define myself outside of faith before I could grow hair on my face.

I haven't had major traumatic events in my life like many of you but I have experienced things that I feel caused me to grow up faster than I wanted to. Now this might sound silly but comics are what got me through my rough times. Whatever I couldn't find in faith I could find in the pages of Spider-Man or Superman. These perfect example of human beings for me to aspire to. For a while I lost that with OMD. I know it doesn't compare to the horror some of you faced but that's my story.

[A Zarkin' Frood]

When my only friend ever died and I did not shed a single tear at her funeral.
When suddenly everyone stopped bullying me because of that and they thought I was really strong or something. But that's not true, I'm just scared to let people know how I really feel. Ever since then I've switched from a blank face to second-rate humour to hide myself. In a way growing up meant to pretend to be happy for me.

But yeah, insert pokemon related story here.

[McTahr]

When I slew the dragon of the mountains and took the maiden fair.

(That is to say, never.)

[Kyanbu The Legend]

Holy crap Token that is just horrible. Please tell me he did not get away with that.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

When I realised the great crunchie train robbery made no sense.

[Bob The Mercenary]

There are a whole lot of things I could post, but I really can't compete with anything said so far.

Does it count if I still have the sense of humor of a twelve year old?

[CABAL49]

Kid4lyf. Also I find this relevanthttp://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/grownups.png.

[PyrosNine]

My childhood ended around the same time everyone else my age started getting married and taking up lifetime jobs, and everyone in my damned family expected of me the same.

I can't even make childish jokes anymore, because they're like "Come on P9, we expect you to be serious! You need to act more responsibly these days!"

And then I try to tell them how great My Little Pony is.....

Maybe my childhood never left, really. He's just hiding in the corner, waiting for sunny days, or until the mean old people stop ruining everyone else's lives over their self-made drama!

At least until My Little Pony, or Jack's big music show. Or until the dog comes around. Or the Kitty. or whenever the Wii's on.

[Bobbey]

In a way I don't think my childhood really left me entirely. I find myself in moments saying or doing immature things, or still going all giddy when I hear the ice cream truck or see an ice cream parlor (I love ice cream). Videogames are still a big part of my life, and I always mostly play game I had while growing up (N64 games are still awesome).

I've had two of those moments though where I felt sapped right out of childhood. Once when I was 8, and I realized while laying in bed one morning that no matter what, I'm going to die one day and it stressed me out immensely, until I accepted it. The other moment was when I was 17 and my 14 year old dog, Sammie, passed away out of old age. She was the only person I could turn to to talk to in my family, because my dad hated talking about personal problems, including his or anyone else's, I hated talking to my mom about it because it never felt like she was trying to give advice, but instead she was always trying to be ''right'', and my sister, to whom I've always listened to when she had a problem in our teenage years, when I actually wanted to talk to her about something (''I need to talk to you...'') told me flat out to fuck off (''I don't give a shit about your problems, I have enough of my own''). I didn't have many friend at school that I could talk to neither about serious problems. So really, the dog was the only person I could talk to, because even though she couldn't talk back, I always had the feeling she understood everything I said to her. Losing her was like losing a big part of my life, and I've only just recently gotten over her death without tears coming up in my eyes whenever I talked/thought about her.

[Terex4]

Its hard to say exactly when mine ended. My first ten years basically formed the foundation for the life-long identity crisis I been having.

Around 10 years old, I discovered that everything I thought I knew about myself had been lies. My mother covered things up so well I might as well have been in the witness protection program.

Then there was the point when I discovered that no amount of prayers, birthday wishes, wishing wells, or sheer will power could grant me the sex change I've been after since I was 4.

I've since rediscovered my inner child though, and it keeps me floating.

[Ecks]

My childhood died this week. See SELFHELPEXTRAVAGANZA Thread.

Shit sux, guys.

[Aerozord]

End? I have been at about the same level of rationale and reason from day one. I was never really restricted by social norms or peer pressure, I have always done whatever I felt was proper at all stages of my life.

As I always said, something doesn't suddenly stop being fun just because you get older

[Osterbaum]

Damnit, so many of you guys have been through such shit that I'm just at a loss for words right now.

[The Sevenshot Kid]

Damnit, so many of you guys have been through such shit that I'm just at a loss for words right now.

Yeah. I felt like a major dick for saying Joe Quesada ended my childhood after I saw what other people have gone through but I'll consider that a little blessing. We now have a deeper understanding of some of our fellow members from which we can build up our respect, but never our pity, for each other. I'm glad to know I'm a part of a community where we can share because we're not afraid of judgment or pity.

[Kyanbu The Legend]

Yeah. I felt like a major dick for saying Joe Quesada ended my childhood after I saw what other people have gone through but I'll consider that a little blessing. We now have a deeper understanding of some of our fellow members from which we can build up our respect, but never our pity, for each other. I'm glad to know I'm a part of a community where we can share because we're not afraid of judgment or pity.

Same here about me in pokemon questionably ending my childhood.

I still feel like an emo after reading some of you guys back stories. But yeah it's awesome how we can be this open to each other.

[Seil]

The fun thing is that it really doesn't change my opinion about anyone. We're all still (and by all, I mean you guys) pretty rad, and hopefully most of us will continue being rad for some time.

Whatever happened to us in the past, whatever string of coincidences led us to NPF, we've got a pretty solid user-base, one that supports each other through all the insulting and berating. We come to the forum sometimes for support and well-wishes, because we're down and in need of a friendly word, and for the most part, people are accomodating, and it's what makes this a very special place for a lot of us. It's nice. I hope NPF stays this way.

That being said, I live a sheltered life as a shut in - being totally honest on that one - which has made me very naive and idealistic. I've always identified more with children than with adults.

[Red Mage Black]

While I do have something to admit that ended it for me, I don't believe I can really mention it. Not only does it have legal risk to myself, but could also crumble my life around me. It was five years ago and I'll admit I was 17 and should have known better, but I was being selfish and took it out upon two people who are far younger then I am. I won't say it got to the worst point that it could have, but it doesn't change the fact of what I did was wrong and as tacticslion(whom I trusted with the information) pointed out as outright evil.

It happened that long ago and yes... even then I was on NPF. I still can't quite forgive myself for it and I certainly know THEY have forgotten, but it probably doesn't change the inevitable. So now because of it, it has caused me years of inconsolable depression and aggravating anxiety of when I may have to 'pay the Piper'. I can't tell you how many times I've thought of killing myself because I don't want to face what will happen. I don't want to face the shame of it all because I know I won't be able to handle it.

Its made me a horrified shut-in, afraid to talk to people face to face because I'm afraid they might find out what I did just by looking at me. Like I'm wearing my soul on the outside and they can see every bit of me.

I won't try to compare it to the horrible events others like Token have faced. I just hope my friends still have the capacity to not spell out the exact events on me.

The main question was, how did my childhood end? Well, I was still a child back then, at least that's how my mind was.

[Flarecobra]

I was 6 and I was in a car crash with my mother.

She died. I lived.

[synkr0nized]

amusing anecdotes about having to pay bills
moving out of the parents' house
puberty jokes
something about the vidja games and the animez
etc.


rape
child abuse/sexual abuse
traumatic life experiences


Whelp.

[Krylo]

On that note:

Today. When I read this thread.

[Red Mage Black]

amusing anecdotes about having to pay bills
moving out of the parents' house
puberty jokes
something about the vidja games and the animez
etc.
rape
child abuse/sexual abuse
traumatic life experiences

Whelp.
Truth be told? I expected the same thing. Guess you risk hearing things you never thought you'd hear when you ask about this stuff.

[Julford Hajime]

When I was 13 I became friends with a kid at my school. His parents were divorced and his father was homeless, so he was living with his uncle for the time being. About a year or so after we'd become friends, his father finally got his life back together, getting an apartment and managing enough income for my friend to finally move back in with him. They were only a 30 minute drive away, so he would visit his uncles every weekend and we'd hang out then.

Not too long after this started up though, his uncle was charged for a sexual offense (I never learned the details, outside of that it happened at a bar just down the street); my friend was no longer allowed to see this uncle, and as a result we started to grow apart. We'd get together maybe one weekend a month, play videogames until 5 in the morning, but that was it since neither of us were old enough to drive and it was too much of a hassle on our parents. Eventually we grew apart completely, and I hadn't talked to him in months. I was probably about 15 at the time.

Suddenly this friend called up probably after 8 months of no communication, and we start reminiscing. We talk about stupid shit for 15 minutes or so, before he finally just says "I want to kill myself". He'd been having anger issues and getting into fights since I'd last seen him, and had gone to juvie for it. He'd already tried to kill himself once, and was contemplating doing it again right then and there.

Frankly, I shut down. I talked to him for another 25 minutes, but to this day I cannot remember any of what I said to him, other than it was the vagueest "Don't do it" shit that could come to mind. Ultimately the conversation staggered off and he said he had to go now, and I couldn't bring myself to ask him if he'd made up his mind. The next day I didn't go to school, pretending to be sick. All day I just sat and looked at the phone, and tried to get the courage to call. I never did. I didn't call the day after, either, terrified that I had killed my friend by not being able to talk him out of it.

I hated myself for my inability to handle the situation for the longest time, and I still haven't really gotten over it. I forced myself to man the fuck up in case a situation ever came up like that again, so that I wouldn't panic like that again; now, during stressful emergency situations like that I am to all the world the most uncaring asshole you will see, giving out orders to try and handle the situation as best I can.

I didn't even find out if he was dead or alive until three years later, when we bumped into each other at my high school; turned out his sister still went to my school district but under a different last name, but since we were three years apart we hadn't been in the same school until my senior year. He was in the school to see her in the school concert, and we reminisced about old times while avoiding that last conversation, we hugged, and then he was off. I haven't seen him since then.

tl;dr - When I was 15, a friend threatened to commit suicide over the phone. I got too scared to do the right thing, and hid away from it. In the end, he never killed himself, but that fear and realization that others could depend on me was when I stopped being a child, I suppose.

[pochercoaster]

Dang guys :( I don't know what to say. I'm sending you all happy vibes.

I've never felt like there was a large separation between childhood and adulthood for me, but I was a very serious kid. I put off other kids my age because I was serious and knew it but I didn't really care. It took me some time to learn how to relax. That said I find being an adult more enjoyable than being a kid because I have more control over decisions that affect my life, whereas before it was up to a bunch of adults that were (often) incompetent and I knew they were incompetent but I didn't have the power to do anything about it.

Basically as soon as I graduated high school I got two jobs, saved up a bunch of money and moved out into my own apartment, all on my own dime. That felt less like growing up and more like a relief for me, though.

[shiney]

Mine probably stopped before it started; my sister was hit by a car when she was 2 and I was 1 and I grew up in a state of either complete neglect or overwhelming attention/affection.WHEN I DISCOVERED PORN

[Premmy]

I grew up in a state of either complete neglect or overwhelming attention/affection.WHEN I DISCOVERED PORN
Your parents where weird.

[shiney]

Parent. No dad in the picture.

[Bard The 5th LW]

There is a lot of tragedy in this thread. Whoa. You guys are pretty strong people.

There was the day when my dad came into the room abruptly and said "Grandma died," before walking out. Moments later he came back in and cleared up that he was talking about his grandmother, who was around 97 years old. I was a bit sad, but I suppose the fact that I wasn't too close to her and she was getting short on time made it hard to feel very melancholy in the long term. Still, the brief amount of time that I thought my grandma was dead left me sort of stunned. My grandfather already died about 8 years earlier, but I guess I was too young to fully understand what happened at the time. The strike of mortality there was jarring.

Despite that, I don't really know if mine has ended though. I still see myself as being idealistic. If it ends, I guess I'll know when it happens.

[Osterbaum]

I think it might be best to define the end of childhood as losing your innosence rather than becoming somehow "mature" the way society (or rather the previous generation) seems to view it.

[Azisien]

The day M. Night Shyalaman took the beloved classic of my childhood, Avatar: the Last Airbender, and turned it into a live-action movie.


Except I'm actually serious.

[Doc ock rokc]

I am sorry that I turned this thread into something negative. It's just...the only definition of "the end of childhood" that I have... Everything else was just "growing up."

[Magus]

Probably the night my brother died. Things got pretty terrible after that.

[Solid Snake]

When I was between the ages of thirteen and fourteen I went through a rough period of my life that also happened to correspond with a rough period in my father's life. He was a program manager for a new business product (I won't go into details) that was failing horribly. As a result, he worked exceptionally long hours, was repeatedly degraded by bosses and coworkers, and was basically knowingly made into a scapegoat for the company he had then worked for.

Meanwhile, my problems were more of the traditional "Fuck, being a nerd at this age absolutely sucks" variety. Didn't fit in, didn't have any friends, was labeled all kinds of horrifying things, was lonely and passive and taken advantage of. Typical melodrama for that age, I'd presume.

Anyway, my father would come home those nights in an absolute fury. Because he couldn't take out any of his frustrations on his employers during working hours, he discovered physically abusing family members was the answer to all his 'problems.' Fortunately for my sisters and my mother, my father at least still retained sufficient morality to be utterly against taking any physical action against women. (He still gave out plenty of verbal abuse to my mother, who often found herself in the hapless position of trying to protect me.)
Unfortunately for me, my father had no similar qualms against slapping, pushing, punching, and threatening me.

Started off as small shoves during occasional confrontations over grades and internet usage and whatnot. I still remember being falsely accused for downloading pornography on the family computer and getting slapped across the face and tossed like a ragdoll onto the living room couch for a 'crime' my father had committed. (Well, I presume it was him; I suppose it also could have been one of the women in our household.) The worst came when my father grabbed me hard and pushed me down the stairs, when our small dog was in fact in harm's way, in such a way that the poor dog and I both went tumbling down half the staircase together.

It was a four month period that absolutely sucked. I made it worse on myself by frequently standing up against my father and choosing to fight fire with fire, and occasionally I even began to initiate the physical struggles, though frankly given what I weighed back then I highly doubt I could have possibly hurt him.

Eventually one particularly bad night (though I do not recall what made it 'bad') led me to seriously contemplate suicide. I escaped the house late at night, walked about five minutes to the river near our house, and thought it'd be a pleasant idea to just take a dive and get wet.

And I remember the moment I decided I wouldn't go through with it. Not that I actually ever seriously was going to; in retrospect I sort of doubt it. But I was staring up at the stars on a cloudless night and I had an ironically childish thought: So many stars, the universe is so vast, this moment of my life is so small by comparison, if I stay alive I can explore all the stars, I can find love and acceptance and answers to all the mysteries out there.

So I suppose I'd have to say the moment I 'grew up' was, perhaps strangely enough, the moment I chose to hold on to a source of childhood joy. I think it's strange, albeit accurate. If you think about it, life is all about the choices you make and what you choose to believe. At that moment I realized I could be miserable in my despair, I could give into my cynicism and just give up on everyone and everything, or I could consciously choose to retain hope. Sometimes growing up isn't about refusing to be a child, it's about embracing the very best messages of childhood. Maybe that's the reason adults find Disney movies more tolerable than most teenagers. We believe as adolescents that we are supposed to despise everything "children like," only as adults to come back to the joys we thought we must abandon.

The physical abuse ended when my father was transferred into another division following the failure of his failed product. Since then I gradually forgave my father and, to be honest, he's earned that forgiveness several times over in his actions. He's become a better man, and a different one than who he was.

As for me, though, I think being an adult is all about realizing why adults teach all those fables and fairy tales to their children. No, not the hatemongering conservative "this is why we hate the gays" ones. But the simpler ones, the ones about love and virtue and sacrifice, the ones about exploring the vast unknown and becoming a hero and standing up for what's right.

I may not always believe in certain politicians or certain celebrities or certain friends or even certain religions and certain Gods, but I will always believe in the childish hope that drives all fantasies, that belief that we can be heroes, that notion that there is something greater to life than simply being victims or pawns, that there are dragons to slay and a fair maiden to rescue and a "Happily Ever After" to chase at the end of the fable.

Maybe everything I've said is foolish, and maybe I haven't truly grown up yet. Maybe. I dunno. It's an answer I can live with, though.

As a complete aside I think that's why I'm so pissed off that America isn't going ahead with its space program. I know, I know, insert NonCon and many others here lecturing me about how the money is better spent feeding and clothing everyone in need. Still, there's just something utterly intangible about space that speaks to the soul, the notion that through exploring the cosmos we'll better understand our place and our purpose, the idea that pushing the boundaries of the frontier can lead to reinvention and self-discovery, the goal of spreading and preserving the human race.

I hate to think that we've lost that, that we've become so obsessed with entertainment in the form of easy-to-access internet and videogames and television and texting and Facebook and Myspace that eventually we'll just lose any and all pursuit of greater purpose and find ourselves satisfied with the mere comfort and satisfaction in hollow existence.
...But that's just me.

[Magus]

My father acted the same way but was able to partially overcome it with depression medicine. It's terrible when a parent acts one way one minute and then turns into a monster the next, especially when you're young. Now I know what to say/do to avoid outbursts when I see him, but it still rubs me the wrong way that I had to spend so many years going out of my way to figure out and avoid what would make him go nuts, when I didn't just lose my temper and give in and actually instigate it by saying things that would 'cause him to fly off the handle. At some point I realized that with his having so little control over his anger that I could identify exactly what to say in any particular situation to make him lose it gave me more power than him, and I was able to sort of quasi-come to terms with the whole situation by realizing how weak he was and still is.

Well it is still probably 99% of the time, sometimes he still flips out for things I haven't figured out how to avoid yet.

[Grand Master Kickface]

17, when I realized that the railroad of school, college, and work would never end and I'd end up being used by authority figures for the rest of my life with no personal satisfaction in return. I haven't found sense of self-empowerment since then, but hey, video games and anime are fun.

[Overcast]

5 when I realized I could die.