Age is all-important to a child, probably because their life is proportionally shorter than the rest of us. To a five-year old, a year is FOREVER, primarily because it makes up 20% of his entire lifetime. By contrast, it seems much shorter at 40, because it represents something closer to 2.5% of a lifetime. So, it's been my experience (both personally and with my children) that kids look toward milestones as something of a happening. "I turned 5 today, so I should start Kindergarten tomorrow." "When I'm sixteen, I'll be able to drive a car.", and so on. I remember being in grade school and thinking that 1988 was practically unimaginable, since that was the year we were supposed to graduate. Now I know people (not even including my own kids) who weren't even BORN in 1988.
The thing I've noticed about kids, though, is that grown-up age is somehow different than kid age. I wonder sometimes if it's kind of similar to the people years vs. dog years comparison. To a child, especially a young child, most all grown ups are old in one way or another. But the "number" of our age doesn't compute in their heads. I've told my kids in the past (when they've asked) how old I am. And I had to laugh when my preschooler came home with a piece of paper this last week as part of his Mother's Day gifts. It was a fill in the blank form that was about me, and filled in by him. The first statement was "My Mom is ____ years old." He said I was 15. While that seemed like quite an entertaining compliment, he has no concept of the fact that with him being 5 and his brother going on 8, I must have started having a family REALLY early!
It made me think of a time when I was probably in the 12-14 age range. My grandparents had come over to the house to visit, and were sitting at the dining room table talking with my Mom and Dad. I was in the living room watching television. It was the time frame of all the "Where's the Beef?" commercials, and a commercial came on that I found really entertaining. I went in to tell the family about how silly it was, and mentioned that there was "a REALLY old lady ... she must have been 60 or 70 years old" starring in the commercial. My grandmother feigned (I think) being hurt, I suppose because I thought grandmother-ish age was "old". I don't think she probably knows what an impact that made on me from that time on. After that, I never talked about someone in that age range being old. If someone was old, they had to be at least 400 years old, because that way I didn't hurt anyone's feelings.
I suppose that's why I had to chuckle as I talked to my boys today about what I'd probably be like when I got old. I made a passing comments I made that turned into quite the conversation with my two oldest. Glenn asked if I'd be old when Ryan got married, and then decided I'd be old when I was 84, because his first grade teacher always tags "and many more, until you're 84" onto the end of the Happy Birthday song. Matthew, the sweet child who said I was 15, said "Mommy, you'll never be old!" Bless his heart ... love like that can't help but keep you young, no matter how old you are.
