We all know that our sense of time changes as we grow older – with everything speeding up at an alarming rate. One of the most notable markers of this is the age of our children – and even more so – our grandchildren.
When We Were Young
I don’t know about you, but when I was a child, time seemed to stretch on forever. If it was Christmas, summer was ages and ages away. You looked forward to being the next age up – to be seven when you were six, and so forth – but didn’t it take a long time to come!
It seemed the natural order of things that time passed slowly and one never thought to question it.
Children and Time
By the time you are in your 30s and 40s, time speeds up a bit, but not that much. Having children in the house keeps you so busy, you don’t think about time as such. Perhaps their birthday parties seem to come around more quickly than yours ever did, or you notice their friends getting taller rather quickly. But somehow there was nothing alarming about the speed of things.
Grandchildren Change So Quickly
But when it comes to grandchildren, everything speeds up so fast you begin to wonder if you have time to enjoy them. They seem to change from toddlers to teenagers in the blink of an eye.
This is particularly the case, I suspect, when you don’t see the grandchildren all that often. We all heard “My, how you’ve grown!” when we were children and thought it was a silly remark. Now, we all probably repeat it ourselves. And buying appropriate presents can be a minefield. It moves amazingly quickly from dolls to make-up, from toy trains to football gear, and for all them to small screens of every kind.
And then they learn so fast. One minute they are working out how to read and the next they are learning French or Mandarin. And they know things you don’t know. This came home to me recently when my then seven-year-old grandson taught my husband how to use his iPad.
Children as Markers of Time
I have always used the age of my children as markers for particular times – we moved house when my daughter was seven, my good friend died when my son was 10. These were easier ways of remembering dates than the actual year, as the years tend to merge into one another with surprising ease.
In contrast, I find it hard to use my grandchildren’s ages as markers of time as they move so fast from one age to another.
Other People’s Surprise
And your friends are constantly surprised about ages. “Is your son really 42 – it feels like only yesterday that we took him to university!” “Is that baby grand-daughter six years old already?” Different friends are taken aback by different information, but what they have in common is surprise at the passage of time. I tend to say, “Yes, they age, but we don’t. We just stay the same.”
And this is, perhaps, hardest of all – realising that we are aging, too. I still remember my own father saying he didn’t mind so much getting old, but he hated having middle-aged children. He always said I was 31, whatever age I actually was. I really understand now how he felt.
Let’s Have a Conversation:
Do your grandchildren seem to grow before your very eyes? Do you use your children’s ages to remember events? How has your perception of time changed over the years? Please add your thoughts in the comments below.
