Perhaps you’ve heard some version of the saying: “Your own kids grow up slowly; other people’s kids grow up quickly.”
The logic is that you see your own kids all the time and so the growing-up process is very subtle and imperceptible on a day-to-day basis, whereas you only see other people’s once in a while, so they seem to grow up very quickly.
Do you find this to be true?
I don’t have kids, so no basis for comparison. However, kids I don’t see very often seem to age astonishingly fast. Two or three years doesn’t feel like a long time to middle-aged me, but a kid aging from five to eight essentially becomes a different person in that time.
My wife and I used to say “We have a new baby today.” at least once a week the first year. Our little one changed so quickly it was astonishing. One morning when she was small we dressed her in a one piece outfit and by bedtime the fabric was gaping between the snaps. She walked at 8 months. By 18 months she was talking in complete sentences.
She never slowed down. She was working as an assistant stage manager for a professional theater when she was 13, as an unpaid intern, but doing an adult’s job. She is now 16 and a sophomore in college.
No, mine grew up plenty fast, thanks.
Do you have kids? Not being snarky, just asking. Because my son is growing up fast. Sometimes he looks different in the morning than he did before I put him to bed. Definitely looks bigger and older sometimes when I don’t see him for a couple days.
I don’t have kids of my own, but I have been living with a friend helping her raise her kids.
It really all depends on how you’re looking at it in the moment. I feel like looking forward, it felt …not like they were growing up slowly, but that we were in it for the long haul and had a lot of time ahead of us still. Looking backward it always seemed like they were growing up quickly.
To illustrate:[ul]
[li]With a sixth grader, thinking of them graduating from high school feels like, “Oh god, are we even going to be able to make it that far!?”[/li][li]With that same sixth grader, thinking of them in kindergarten feels like, “Oh god, how was that six years ago already!? It feels like it just happened!”[/li][li]In September, the school year feels like a huge looming ordeal.[/li][li]In June, the school year feels like it just flew by.[/li][/ul]
Now, other people’s kids:
During the time that you are raising kids, passage of time for other people’s kids feels the same as for your kids (see above).
If you have never had kids or if your kids are already grown, then I would definitely say that it seems like other people’s kids grow up very fast.
That’s all just my take on it, possible none of it rings true for anyone else.
Didn’t feel like I could vote in the Poll since my take on it is beset by so many conditions and variables.
I’m constantly surprised by how big and advanced my kids are. Yes, I’m also surprised by how fast other people’s kids grow, but my own change so rapidly that it’s obvious even though I’m seeing them every day.
Eliahna, do you feel a significant difference between looking forward vs. looking backward as I described in my post?
Or is that just me?
No, I definitely agree with that. Like how when you go to a new place, the journey home feels shorter than the journey there 
Yes, this, exactly.
Also, it depends on what I’m doing with them at the moment.
The years fly by. Some of the minutes are very slow. A single episode of Caillou is positively eternal.
My kids grew up all too quickly. Went off to college and never moved back. Maybe the grandkids appear to be growing more quickly, but at my age every happens more quickly.
I’m apparently some sort of exception on that second bullet. The Firebug’s in second grade, but even stuff that went on in kindergarten feels like it happened on the other side of time.
Pre-Firebug, a year or two ago didn’t seem very long. Now it seems like eons. For me, a kid makes time feel huge.
Everyone’s kids are growing up quickly, IMO.
I have a 2.5-year-old. Caillou is banned in my house. That kid is the whiniest little shit ever.
I think my mother considered me to be more advanced than other kids. She had a direct comparison with a friend of hers who happened to have a kid 2 weeks older than I. She was always bragging about the new accomplishments of her kid (in fact this was usually the only reason she’d come over: to show something new off). Some examples:
“Look at how she’s standing up on her own! Isn’t that great!” while the kid is barely hanging on to the couch – then I got up and ran down the hall and back.
Kid asks “can I have some wa-wa?” I walk in a few minutes later and ask for water.
When we could read, I’d pass a store every day on the way to school on the bus. The other kid kept putting an “s” on the end of the store’s name. I argued the point and she ran away to her mother, and her mother and mine came and had to consult a phone book because her mother had been wrong all this time too.
So I’d say it’s not hard to compare when you constantly have a friend trying to one-up their kid to yours. And failing.
(I don’t remember any of this.)
I found other people’s kids to grow more quickly before I was a parent. I was always being surprised by how old they had gotten.
Now that I have a kid, though, it’s a lot easier to keep track of how old OTHER kids are because I have something (well okay, not a THING but a person) to compare it to. If I know your kid is three years older than my kid, it’s easier for me to keep it in my head to expect to see a kid who is (my kid’s age + 3) years old even if I only see you once a year.
That said, I do get what the expression is going for.
My daughter is growing up way too fast. She’s not even two yet and it still feels like yesterday we brought her home. I’m already dreading her getting older. I make it a point to stop, no matter whatever I’m doing around the house, no matter how important, and read to her whenever she asks. It’s just a matter of time before she won’t anymore.