Parenting & Family Quote by Dag Hammarskjold

Maturity, in Dag Hammarskjold's hands, isn’t the grim prize of growing up; it’s a return to a child’s clean, unselfconscious belonging. The phrase “among other things” is classic diplomatic understatement, a quiet feint that suggests he’s not issuing a commandment, just slipping a radical idea into the room: real adulthood includes “unclouded happiness,” not merely competence, restraint, or status.

The key verb is “takes it for granted.” Hammarskjold frames the child’s joy as effortless because it’s socially secure. The child at play doesn’t audit the room for power, doesn’t perform identity, doesn’t negotiate entry. He assumes “he is at one” with others, and that assumption becomes the engine of happiness. Subtext: much of adult misery isn’t inevitable tragedy; it’s the fog of self-consciousness, suspicion, and comparison. We don’t lose joy because joy is childish; we lose it because we stop trusting the shared game.

Context matters. As a diplomat and UN Secretary-General in the early Cold War, Hammarskjold lived inside a profession built on managed distrust. His daily reality was blocs, bargaining, and the constant threat that unity is a facade. Against that backdrop, this line reads less like nostalgia than like a moral benchmark: the highest form of maturity is the capacity to rebuild common ground without naivete. He’s hinting that peace-making isn’t only treaties and procedures; it’s the restoration of a human default setting where cooperation feels natural again.

Even the hyphenated “play-mates” does work, emphasizing relationship over activity. The game is never just the game; it’s the temporary community it creates.