Oddball, endearing and quirky answers to life’s questions
Fifth-graders at Westerly Creek Elementary laugh as they dream of a world without adults. Left to right: Carmel Thompson, Logan Honnis, Carter Hoops, Avalon Currow and Allen Jordan.
Imagine for whatever reason adults no longer exist and kids solely occupy the world.
A group of fifth-graders from Westerly Creek Elementary ponder the hypothetical situation. “Are you saying our parents would go on ba-cation without us?” Logan Honnis says.
They mull it over. The ideas start slowly; perhaps they’d watch shows in bed with their dog or not wear pants all day. But quickly the momentum builds, and they realize the reality of no adult existence.
“There are a lot of things we can’t do right now that we could if adults didn’t exist,” Allen Jordan says. “We could build a gigantic pyramid just for the sake of it.”
He imagines he would go hunting and dress as Spiderman because ‘Man, who doesn’t love Spiderman?’ And when he runs out of funding he plans to break dance for money and get signed as a rapper.
“We’d get our driver’s licenses,” Avalon Currow says. The group pictures driving smart cars or electric scooters—more fit for their stature than full-size cars.
For their meals they list Hot Pockets, Fruity Pebbles, dark chocolate, and fried Twinkies whenever they want. Cooking is easy, they say. Just read instructions on the box.
They would adopt any animal of their choosing—wolf, octopus, sharks, chickadee, “crazy squirrels” and more.
Carmel Thompson imagines hosting a huge sleepover that would take over her entire house. She may also have a friend move in as a roommate.
“I’d have to figure out how to work the washing machine,” Honnis says. He is the logistical one of the group. He calls the other fifth-graders’ ideas “crazy.” “Sometimes what I’m hearing from you guys can be ridiculous,” he says.
“You say that, but when it happens you’re going to go crazy,” Jordan jumps in. “Your parents will leave and you’ll walk out the door and start partying.”
Honnis doesn’t believe him, though. He pictures an adult-less world trashed with litter and kids screaming and running everywhere. He hopes a war wouldn’t break out between kids and power-hungry teens.
To survive the chaos, he would form an alliance and build a sanctuary with materials to survive and a hard shell to protect from invasion.
If the fifth-graders did encounter trouble, they don’t seem to fear surviving without their parents. If someone broke into their house, they’d look for nooks and crannies to hide. Honnis would squeeze in between mattresses on his bed.
“I would run into my laundry room. There’s this little thing behind my washing machine, and I would sit there,” Currow says.
If Carter Hoops ran out of food, she would run to her orthodontist who she says serves tuna fish before fixing her teeth—an oddity that didn’t entirely make sense to the group.
Could kids survive without parents? They seem to think yes. Some say they’d miss their parents after a few weeks; others say a few years. After a while they may turn to a sibling for help while others say they’d be OK with a sibling leaving with their parents.
“It’d be OK as long as they went on a shopping spree before they left,” Thompson says.
