Anything going to age me as much as having my baby - youngest of 3 kids - turn 18 today? On the one hand it sure doesn’t seem like 21.5 years since we were childless. OTOH, it is hard to remember what it was like being something other than a parent first.
It is funny how much impact something as simple as a birthday can be. It is just a number… And yes, she graduated from high school and was heading to college next month. But MAN, 18 sounds old for my YOUNGEST kid.
It seems like my kids’ milestones are coming quicker and quicker. The eldest turned 21 in Jan, and graduates college next year. And I presume they will then start getting married, getting their own places, having kids . . .
When you have kids it isn’t just your own biological clock and situation in life that makes you feel old. You’ve got all your kids’ clocks ticking away as well!
Oh well, at least I have an excuse to eat cake today!
Wait a minute, you had three kids in three and a half years? No wonder you feel old.
Although, seriously, that might be part of it. As you said, all those milestones are coming thick and fast, and you don’t really get a chance to get used to the idea before the next one comes up.
If you’re lucky, the milestones will continue to be good ones. You get used to it, eventually. In the meantime, enjoy cake. You’ve earned it.
Yeah, from January 89 to July 91 - that’s pretty much exactly 3.5 years. At the time we thought that the alternative - stretching it out over a longer time - was no more appealing!
With your blessing, maybe I’ll have a second piece of cake!
My parents recently had their youngest leave home, etc. It made them feel really old because their oldest was 25 already… but in January, they’re celebrating mine (their eldest’s) wedding. And then I know they’ll enjoy the landmarks that come with grandchildren. They are all good things.
As I like to remind my own 16- and 18-year-olds, I can still have 5 or 6 more (ymmv, of course), and probably only a couple of them will have Down’s Syndrome! I’m not *that *old!! If that applies to you as well, there now, don’t you feel young? Ish?
I was graduated from high school for two years, and married for one in 1997. Are you sure they’ll be 13? My son was born in March of 1997, he’s 12.
I feel old every time I hear any song off of GnR’s Appetite for Destruction. That came out in 1987, and my favorite album in middle school. Babies born that year are old enough to legally drink starting last year.
Well Dinsdale - as long as you never stop practicing making children you should feel relatively young for many, many more years As for feeling old because your daughter turned 18 - I got nothin yet…I’m almost 40 with no children yet, and people keep telling me that 40 is the new 30…so I suppose I have something to look forward to.
Man, one thing that would DEFINITELY make me feel older than being 48 with 18-21 year old kids, would be to have young kids while in my 40s and 50s. If I had to do now with my creaky old body what I used to do with my little kids - it would KILL me!
Golfed the other day with a guy in his 50s who had 2 pre-school kids. I can’t IMAGINE how he does that. Just hearing about that was enough to drive me to nap in my hammock!
33, no kids. But I do have a little brother who is 25.
I met him when he was a few hours old. He was a baby! Now he’s done a tour in the AF and is in school doing nerdy computer stuff and all around is living like a responsible adult.
Yes, that very fact is pervading my mind as of late. I too have a close friend in his late 40’s with toddlers and he’s fit as a fiddle…his pad answer when I ask how he’s doing is, “I’ll sleep when I’m dead” funny as that is, I think the statement may be more accurate than I know.
I always said that it’s not your own birthdays that make you feel old - it’s your kids’! Last week my oldest turned…wait for it…37! Oh. my. god. How can I be old enough to have a child approaching 40? (She’s not thrilled about it either!)
My son, the baby…is now 21 and in the National Guard. Yes, I waited til my first was old enough to babysit before having my second…! Perhaps it was that experience - having to deal with a newborn sibling when she was 15 (:o) - that has kept my daughter childless so far. So, as old as I am, I am not yet a grandmother! Ya just never know how things are going to work out, do you?
