A MARTÍNEZ, BYLINE: The web series Recess Therapy has brought brief and insightful conversations with children to millions of people.
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JULIAN SHAPIRO-BARNUM: A lot of grown-ups are obsessed with looking young. What do you think about that?
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: If it hurts you, then you probably shouldn't do it because, like, even if looking young looks good, if it doesn't feel good, then you probably shouldn't do it.
- SHAPIRO-BARNUM: That's crazy good advice.
MARTÍNEZ: That is show creator and author Julian Shapiro-Barnum. And after years of chats, just like that one with a wise child who is not named in the video, he's bottled up the advice from kids into a new book called "How To Grow Up Without Becoming A Grown-Up."
You argue that adults would be a lot happier if they acted just like children.
- SHAPIRO-BARNUM: So I firmly do believe this, and I think we all look at kids and envy their freedoms. Once you're a grown-up, you can look back and see how freely kids feel their emotions, how amazing kids are at making new friends, how free their imagination is. And so what the book kind of aims to do is outline all of those little ways that kids do implement their freedoms, and I try to show how we adults could bring them into our day-to-day lives.
MARTÍNEZ: All right. So let's get into specifics. You have recommendations on how to jump-start our imagination as adults. How do we do that?
- SHAPIRO-BARNUM: Well, you know, kids imagine constantly. They imagine something, and then they play make-believe. They think about what it would be like to be a pirate, and then the next thing you know, they're jumping on the couch. They're sword fighting. Like, they live out that fantasy immediately. Adults daydream about what it would be like to do X, Y and Z, but it stays in our heads. And what I try to do in the book is outline how we can take our imaginings and get used to, like kids, bringing them into our bodies. Over time, if you can invite that sense of curiosity and play, all of a sudden, you're doing things that you might not have thought you'd be able to do.
MARTÍNEZ: So there was a conversation in the book you had with Kiara (ph), 7 years old, in New York City.
- SHAPIRO-BARNUM: Yes.
MARTÍNEZ: And you asked, why do grownups have less energy? The response blew me down because I'm thinking, who is this wise 7-year-old that seems to know everything? I'll - here's the response. They are - OK, why do grownups have less energy? They are less excited about life. They think life has passed them by. They think every day is just a regular day.
- SHAPIRO-BARNUM: Kiara is brilliant. But I think that's true. I think kids are so excited about life. Like, they wake up on a Saturday morning at 6 a.m., not because they have to, but because they, like, cannot wait for the day.
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah.
- SHAPIRO-BARNUM: Like, to be a kid is to be so enamored by the little things - the bug under the rock or the possibility of ice cream.
MARTÍNEZ: To be excited about life.
- SHAPIRO-BARNUM: Exactly.
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah.
- SHAPIRO-BARNUM: To be excited about life. And I think I aim to do that more.
MARTÍNEZ: But, Julian, I can already hear people listening to this thinking, OK, well, what's the difference then between not acting like a grown-up and then being immature?
- SHAPIRO-BARNUM: Well, I think immaturity is not such a bad word. To be a kid, like, really is to break the rules. You know, when we are kids, we are told, don't do this, by adults constantly. And when you are a kid, you do not listen to that ever. And as we become older, we start to be that adult in our own heads. We start to listen to our own set of rules that start to define who we are. We start to tell ourselves, no, I don't do that. No, I am this kind of person. And I feel like to be immature or to be childish is to get comfortable breaking those rules and see who you are outside of who you tell yourself you can be.
MARTÍNEZ: Red button syndrome.
- SHAPIRO-BARNUM: Oh, yes.
MARTÍNEZ: What is red button syndrome?
- SHAPIRO-BARNUM: So, you know, I open the book with talking about rules because when I was a kid, my mom said I had red button syndrome, which basically meant if I was told not to do something, I would do it. I see so many kids have that. The amount of times I've said, like, please just don't touch the microphone, and the next thing they do is touch the microphone. It's provocation without intent of offending. Like, kids want to test. They want to see what happens if they don't listen. And often they gain something from it.
Like - I don't know - my friends and I used to do this thing called British night, where we would get dressed in three-piece suits and put on top hats, and we'd spend the whole night pretending to be British men. And we'd go bar hopping, and it broke every rule.
MARTÍNEZ: Please tell me you had an accent to go along with it.
- SHAPIRO-BARNUM: Oh, of course, you know, (impersonating British accent) we'd be talking like this and we'd go, It's a pleasure to meet you. My name is Damien Rodrick (ph).
MARTÍNEZ: Damien Rodrick.
- SHAPIRO-BARNUM: And I'm from London. And we had such a good time. We didn't hurt anybody. We made friends. We'd text the next day and tell them that we weren't really who we said we were. And I feel like anything you can do to fill your cup, anything you can do to, like, have fun and have a unique and new experience is a feather in your hat and is powerful in its own right.
MARTÍNEZ: So, Julian, I want to get biblical with you for a second, if that's OK.
- SHAPIRO-BARNUM: Oh, Lord. Let's do it.
MARTÍNEZ: Here we go - 1 Corinthians 13:11.
- SHAPIRO-BARNUM: My favorite one.
MARTÍNEZ: Here's the verse. (Reading) When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child. But when I became a man, I put away childish things.
That verse goes counter to everything that I read in your book. So I'm putting the two books together - the Bible versus "How To Grow Up Without Becoming A Grown-Up." How do you respond to that train of thought?
- SHAPIRO-BARNUM: You know, I'm always comparing my work to the Bible. No (laughter). I'm kind of shocked by how many people talk about kids as if they never were one. People always say to me, like, I, like, can't - I can't talk to kids. I don't like kids, or, like, I don't know how you work with kids like that. And I think we forget that, like, not that long ago, honey, you was that.
I think one should never lose their connection to childishness. Like, who are we if we don't have an ability to play and dream and feel freely? Like, all of the best things about humanity were things that we were cultivating when we were young. So I feel like a healthy tether to one's childish self is just to be a healthier person. And I think there's a lot to aspire to have and to desire to emulate.
MARTÍNEZ: Julian Shapiro-Barnum is the creator and host of web series Recess Therapy and also the author of "How To Grow Up Without Becoming A Grown-Up." Julian, thanks a lot.
- SHAPIRO-BARNUM: Such an honor. I'm a fan. Thank you for having me.
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