Loss of Innocence

One of the primary themes of "Things We Worried About When I Was Ten" revolves around the narrator's awareness of the lives of others around him. That the author chooses to focus on the worries and anxieties of a ten-year-old helps highlight the extent to which the narrator's younger self understood his surroundings. Furthermore, the structure of the story – an adult narrator reflecting on his youth – allows the author to make certain implications about the narrator's youth that have only come to light through the narrator's transition into adulthood. The narrator, for example, notes how he often worried about Jesus, especially when he saw a particular girl in church: "Did Jesus know? He had to, didn’t he, melting as he was in my mouth, trying to fill me with piety and goodness while I had this weird feeling about Mary Catherine Michener, who...