Friday, Nov. 11, 2011
JUST SO YOU KNOW: Our ways of counting days
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By Dennis Minich, Special to The Democrat Missourian
The measures parents (and maybe grandparents) use to chronicle their children’s ages are unlike any other time recordings.
When a child is newborn, they stay newborn for at least a couple days, following which the proper measuring device is days. Your child is “so-many” days old from about day three until somewhere around 17 or 18 days when the new measure becomes weeks.
Our kids are “so-many” weeks old from about week three until somewhere around 25 or 30 weeks until months become the new unit of measure. Months are the most-common measurement until around 23 months when suddenly the transition is made to years.
I think two years is the dividing line, because at that point we have nicknames for so many ages. Our two-year-olds are in the “terrible twos” and our six-year olds become “school age.” At that point, ages are not as significant as grades. “How old is your child? Oh, the third grade.” Of course grades don’t apply past grade school, because they then become “middle schoolers.”
We also have the phase of “teenagers,“ but that is suddenly engulfed by them becoming freshmen in high school, sophomores, juniors and seniors. We as parents somewhat ignore the ages, I think in part because the passing years simply increase the price of the presents our young ’uns expect for birthdays.
Following graduation the terminology varies. For some our kids are “college age” or in “in college.” For others they are “in the service” or “they are working.” We are just not eager to enter that next phase, which is “grown child.” I don’t think we have a clear definition for grown child. For some it is 18, others it out of the house, for some it is married, in my case I am not sure I ever grew up, I simply got older. But while the label varies, it is still there.
Our emotions often swing as our children grow. There are times we feel like they can’t grow up fast enough. At other times we can’t relate to why they think that way, because at that age we knew so much more. Then there are the times that we look our children’s faces and wondered how they grew up so fast.
There is a television commercial showing a dad telling his daughter to drive safely. In the driver’s seat we see a young girl of 7 or 8. At the end we see a teenager and realize the little girl was simply how dad saw his daughter. That commercial hits way too close at home.
On Monday, my son reaches a major milestone in his life. Sometimes I look at him and I see a little boy that used to tag along with me and bombard me with millions of questions. There was a little boy that seemed to have emergencies at the drop of the hat: school assignments due tomorrow that require last-minute purchases or help; the book left at home or the assignment someone forgot to sign; the clothes that weren’t cool or the parents who simply existed to embarrass him.
But at other times I look at him and see the fine young man he has become who is learning to cope with the adult world while still new to so many of life’s adventures.
After mastering the crafts in elementary, middle and high school, he has stormed full speed through three years of college making mom and dad very proud. While I would love to still have that “little wonder” wandering around, it is equally wonderful having a strong, charming and loving young man to call me dad.
On Monday my son turns 1,092 weeks old. Looking at it another way, he will be my 252-month-old. Or much more simply, my Derek turns 21 years old. So from now on I am not sure how I will measure the chronology of his life. But the pleasure and joy he has brought to my life cannot be measured and I look forward to the continuing chapters of our lives.
