At ten years old, I made up my mind that I would become a collegiate gymnast at the University of Oklahoma simply because I loved the color of their team leotards. A couple of years prior, I determined that teaching was my calling, and before that, a few too many episodes of Doc McStuffins had my heart set on applying to medical school. Seeing as I am not a collegiate gymnast living halfway across the country or an education major seeking a doctorate in stuffed-animal surgery, my childhood self would have deemed my current life an utter failure. With that absurd vision in mind, it is difficult to understand the internet’s recent obsession with making our younger selves proud.
From songs to social media, the concept of talking to an adolescent version of ourselves is everywhere. Just a simple scroll on TikTok will likely lead you to the viral “I met my younger self for coffee” videos, where people imagine having a real conversation with their childhood selves. My Instagram page is constantly flooded with the “this is who you’re talking to” trend, where users post a childhood photo to remind themselves and their followers that they are still that same innocent kid that they used to be. Even on the radio, songs like “Letter to Me” are dedicated to the idea of going back in time to give your younger self a pep talk.
I am not saying that these well-intended media productions are inherently negative. In fact, it is quite healthy to reflect on your past so you can learn how to build a better future. However, this idea becomes toxic when hyperfixating on childhood goals causes us to lose touch with reality. We stop growing when we treat the opinions of our less mature minds as the ultimate measure of success. Rather than trying to please someone who no longer exists, we get trapped in a cycle of acting like the children we once were. This is where the rise of a misused psychological term has begun to take a detrimental toll on many adults’ minds.
Just a few days ago, I saw a TikTok of a woman dancing through the aisles of a grocery store in an outfit that looked like it belonged at a preschool Halloween party. The caption claimed she was “reparenting” herself by finally being the carefree kid she never got to be. Others have continued this trend in the name of healing their inner child by purchasing the toys they were denied in adolescence. Somewhere in the translation from therapy to social media, the term’s goal has been completely twisted. In a clinical sense, reparenting is about providing yourself with the structure and emotional safety you lacked as a child. This internal process should focus on learning to regulate your emotions as an adult. But online, it has been rebranded as an excuse to act like a child in the middle of Target.
While not every individual chasing their childhood dreams will act foolishly online, old expectations often seep into the smallest parts of our lives. Fear of abandoning past goals or disappointing our younger selves can keep us from reaching our full potential. It tends to feel safer to revert to old ways than to pursue new passions that could lead in unknown directions. In my own life, moving beyond those childhood dreams was terrifying; yet without that change, I’d still be in a sport I’d burnt out on and pursuing a career that didn’t fit me, miles away from the people who feel like home. Trading the uneven bars for a barbell, joining a sorority at a school in Florida, and pursuing a career in broadcast journalism certainly wouldn’t have received praise from a ten-year-old me. Still, in my twenties, I pride myself on those changes.
There is a reason we cannot go back in time to relive our childhood or act in ways that would only appease our less developed minds. The point of growth is that we are not the same people we used to be. You don’t owe it to yourself to try to make your adolescent mind proud, especially when the process of attempting to do so takes you back into the shell of who you once were. I consider it a great blessing that my dreams and ambitions have changed over time, and only pray that if they were to evolve once more, I would have the courage to outgrow myself all over again.