I guess the child experiences that affected Orwell were incredibly extreme. Orwell is using his writing to make sense of his childhood experiences, and telling us that the true nature of childhood is harsh, cruel, and unjust. We all lived at that age, but the majority of us I am sure would never think that way.
             I think it is important to recognize that the essay comments on the nature of childhood, and how adults can easily forget what it was like to think, feel, and react as a child would. As we grow we are expected to "get serious." I think that's the main factor that separates adults from kids the fun factor. Kids laugh at almost anything and they truly think it is funny. Adults would see this as silly.
             Annie Dillard in her essay So This Was Adolescence exaggerates the experience of adolescence, but that's what adolescence is all about... exaggeration. Teenagers tend to think that something is either too ugly or too beautiful, there are no "grays;" everything is either black or white.
             She ends her essay proposing that optimism and passion about being alive are limited to childhood. Children have a peculiar passion for life. This is the way I lived my childhood; everything was perfect. Nothing ever went wrong, or at least I never noticed anything that went wrong. When people leave childhood behind realize that life is full of problems and obstacles. That's why, I think, children want to grow up and most adults wish they could go back in time.
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