I had exactly your sister in law’s attitude when I was a kid. It was absolutely clear to me that the responsibilities and pitfalls of adulthood are nobody’s bed of roses. And yes I believe kids deserve to be happy in their innocence. I know I haven’t laughed as hard or as often since childhood.

Um, yes, I pretty much always knew when I was having fun, and appreciated it a lot. It was, and remains, one of the focuses of my attention!

And I think it was in Kindergarten, or possibly before, that I was aware of not-so-fun things, and my great desire to avoid and escape them as much as possible, as well as the mindsets that seemed to go along with them, such as several of the “grow up and be adult” type conversations.

For just one example, I remember in Kndergarten the teacher asking us what we thought we might like to “be when we grew up” and recognizing threat, obligation, resentment and other really unpleasant context that she and the other kids already had around that question. And my main answer was “toy inventor”.

Sounds like perhaps you and i have have had very very different perspectives on life.

I was a daredevil who was hammer down and loving it.
It is genetic in my dad’s side. Have a blast, and if you don’t die, you can do it again.
I lived on a farm. I was a toddler when I got the chickens to let me hold them. They still tried to get away, but eventually they tried less hard. The roosters were easier than the hens, but all of them calmed down after a couple of minutes on my lap, and would coo to me as I pet them. I loved chasing, catching, holding. The feathers on their neck smell woody and sweet. I loved climbing trees, catching frogs, looking for four leaf clovers.
When I was nine, I taught myself how to walk across the top of my swingset.
I loved when we had new hatched chicks, and we had a batch of cats, and I loved playing with them. We had a huge strawberry patch, and I would stand in the middle and eat until bloated. I would pull big carrots and run them under the hose, and walk around crunching away. My dad hauled rock for a while, and one day he had a load with leftovers. He backed in the back yard and dumped over four tons of sand.
One winter I copied something from a Peanuts comic. Our yard was huge. I made a snowman, and then about twenty little ones facing him. It was snow Church.
I could identify maybe twenty kinds of trees from seeing their leaves.
We had a great raspberry patch, and I ate buckets of them. We had two hickory trees right at the edge of our yard, and gawd do I love hickory nuts!
I loved riding my bike, hula hooping, hiking the back forty, baking from scratch, climbing stuff that wasn’t climbable, catching grasshoppers and getting their black spit on my brother, catching lightning bugs, driving the tractor, tossing hay to the cows, man, I LOVED having fun. I still love to play, when there is something I am able to do.
If I had to do stuff that wasn’t fun, I made it resemble fun.

I very much knew when I was having fun. Also until I hit teenage-hood, I never wanted to grow up either.

Very much so. The happiest moments I’ve ever had was hearing Christmas songs in the 70s and 80s being played on the radio signaling the start of the Christmas season. Will never get that same deep fun feeling again.

Oh yes. In Florida I remember one instance in particular. Neighborhood kid came to get me, because jellyfish were swarming in the canal behind the houses and they were catching them and putting them in coffee cans. It was wild fun.

Oh my gosh, @Patty_Melt, I wish you’d been my sister! We’d have had fun!! I loved spending the whole day in the woods or cow pastures. I loved frogs and toads and salamanders and tadpoles and would bring them home and try to raise the poor things. There was a farm at the end of our street and I’d walk through the cows to get to the upper pasture where there was a boulder the size of a small apartment and have picnics, (we called it ‘big rock’ and the one next to it ‘little rock’; such imaginations!). I’d make a ‘house’ by sitting down real hard in the deep snow to make a ‘chair’ and would shape a bed and table and tromp out a floor and doorway, with walls of snow that came up to my waist. We’d play and sled outside until dark, which was about 4:00pm in Vermont. Good times, eh?

Gosh yes! I had a couple of boulders too, though much smaller. We had a large pond. Because the road to pastures was along one side, there was a spillway to keep it from washing out the road from flooding. The runoff creek was fun to follow, and look for pretty rocks. At a bend, there were two boulders side by side near the creek. They humped up in the center, and tapered down at either end, with one end having a wide shape. I called them the dinosaurs, because it looked like two young dinos laid side by side, and never got up, turning to stone. I would have mom pack a snack, and I’d sit on the dinosaurs for hours under the shade of a huge tree, watching the creek, raccoons, squirrels, and birds. One time I laid flat on the ground, and sprinkled the sandwich crumbs on my stomach. I stayed very still, and soon sparrows were hopping around my tummy, poking their beaks at crumbs. It was tickly, but so cool to share my lunch and enjoy them so close.
The dinosaurs are a very special part of my childhood. I could go there and be alone. My brother rarely followed me there because he thought it was boring.

I too built a chair in the snow. We had a narrow lane from our house to the highway. I had to walk it every day to wait for the bus. Going home always took me longer. I would chase butterflies, catch baby crawdads in the highway ditch, pick flowers. One day I was walking the lane with a thick layer of snow over everything. It made the lane seem much longer. I sculpted and packed until I had a chair just perfect for my size. I sat a long while. Soon, cardinals, chickadees, and sparrows were scattered on the lane, searching for blown bits of plant which might be food. I sat there til near dark, like fivish. My mom didn’t even think of coming to look for me. Thinking back on such things, I wonder if she trusted I was being me, or if she was practicing tears for when I am found frozen.
Well, that aside, I survived to get old, but the fun of my childhood is permanently imprinted in my soul.
I knew I would grow up, but I had deep resolve that my life would include enough excitement that I would have endless cool stories to tell my grandchildren.

@Patty_Melt The dinosaurs are a very special part of my childhood.

I know what you mean. Frogs were a special part of mine, and I have a very cool cross-stitch I’m currently working on that has 5 frogs sitting on top of one another in a stack, each one a bright color. Love the image of sparrows on your tummy. ;)

I remember so much that was fun, but I don’t remember if I actually was thinking of it as fun.

I remember such great times at my grandparents’ house, in their yard with friends, or in the front of their house riding bikes. I remember sleigh riding with my mother and taking walks with my mother, around the lake, feeding ducks and looking at the wildlife. I remember playing with friends in front of our apartment building. I don’t know if I thought of it all as fun. It was fun and it was great, but I don’t remember consciously thinking of it as fun.

The most striking thing I remember about childhood is that I recall it as the stage of my life when virtually every day began with a feeling of anticipation. And each time I think about this, I always conclude that this cannot possibly be the truth.

@jca2 That’s how it was for me. I kind of took it for granted when I was young. Sledding, swimming, climbing trees, riding my bike, dancing, playing at the playgrounds, spending time with my grandparents or my aunt, I enjoyed all of those thing.

This thread blows my mind. I can’t imagine being not sure if I understood fun as a child!

I have one memory which specifically addresses the subject from an opposing view.

I had an aunt who had a dozen kids. She got confused about which ones did and did not get polio vaccine. One of my cousins was bedridden much of his childhood. It was heartbreaking for me to think of any child not being able to run, jump, climb, and explore. Any opportunity I had to go for a visit, I wanted to. I wanted to be supportive. I hoped I could do or say something to give him some fun. Probably I didn’t. Possibly I made him miss healthy days all the more. Eventually he wore braces, then walked without them. He was about three feet tall.
He married a very sweet woman, had a batch of kids, and ran his own business for several years.
The last time I saw him, he had a waist length beard. It made him look like a garden gnome, but I never told him so.

Yes, I knew I was having fun, because I knew he wasn’t.
What I didn’t think about, was how many of my dangerous stunts could have ended my fun long term, or permanently.

Now that I’m older, disability has deeply restricted fun, but I still seek it.

I remember the first time I got the giggles. THAT was fun fo sho!