By Beck
It is – despite the chilly mid-April temperatures and the monsoon rains – summer and the local young people are enjoying their freedom. Primarily, they are enjoying running drunkenly by my house in the middle of the night and waking me up with their loud, happy voices, and in the morning I wake up to beer bottles on the sidewalk, which is merry.
My oldest daughter is ten. She is having a sunny, happy summer, playing frequently with her best friend and making plans for future summers – the clubhouse they want to build on the hill, which they think will take them a couple of years, but they’re not worried, since childhood lasts forever and they will always be little girls. Ten.
Some of the drunken girls walking by – and I made them sound worse then they are, but they’re just, in fact, girls walking happily in the dark with their friends, beer bottles or no – were just little girls themselves minutes ago. I was sitting on my porch one evening as a group of teens passed and one gave me a listless little wave, a girl who – just minutes ago – I once spent a bemused morning helping brush her Barbie’s hair as she chattered on about her childhood, her childhood which would surely last forever.
My husband and I frequently talk about the funny nature of childhood time – how our own childhoods seemed so endlessly long, these years that felt like decades – and how our children’s childhoods are feeling so poignantly short. At the same time, though, there’s this funny sense that we’ve always been parents, that we’ve always had them – they were our childhood companions, running alongside our innocent bikes, they were waiting patiently in our 20s, that they have always been ours.
And at the same time, neither of us were prepared for this, for the end of childhood coming clearly into view.
My oldest child and her friend had a lemonade stand the other day, a remarkably unsuccessful lemonade stand and so the two of them sat there and sang loudly while they were waiting for customers. “Who’s that walking on the water/who’s that walking on the sea?” “What do you do with a drunken sailor/er-lie in the morning?” The sunlight fell golden on them, filtered through the green leaves and onto the plastic cups and lemonade pitcher and then they laughed and brought everything in, and it was still the morning and childhood would surely last forever.
Sniff, Sniff.
Aww, Beck. What a poignant post! All so very true.
Now I’m gonna bawl.
You know, I think that reading your writings help me enjoy the “now” of my children. My 2 are closer to the beginning of their childhoods than the end and I think that your perspectives help me really live intentionally with them.
Yep. Fast and slow. With an 18-year-old and a 10-month-old and several in between, I see the fast and the slow and it makes my heart spin. Where did the time go? When will it end? Shoo! Go play! Come back, let me brush your hair.
Dammit, I knew I shouldn’t have read it.
I can offer no words of comfort to you, Beck – it’s all true, and I miss my sunny little 10-year-old girl. She was kidnapped by aliens on her 13th birthday and replaced by a sullen, alienated, bored, too-much-makeup-wearing teen. Devastating. The loss is devastating.
Right now I’m in the fuzzy part of summer where it seems that JULY will surely last forever. Days on end where I’m not sure of the date or whether I’ve got anything I should be doing. The interesting part is where I blink and another year has passed. My B turns 6 on Tuesday, which is the other side of 5, rolling down that hill towards 10. The blessing of it all for me would be how enjoyable each age is, how thankful I am to be witness to this time in their lives. :0)
i need to keep tissues by my computer just for you posts. darn you.
Last week my dad told the Tongginator (age five) that she would be a teenager “before you know it.” And the Tongginator completely freaked out, requiring reassurance that it would take a long, long time for her to become a teenager. I told her that it wouldn’t happen until well after she wanted it to happen… and way before I was ready for it. Sniff.
Aw. Nice stuff.
Childhood does last forever – for some, the ones who never grow up.
This post is similar in one that I am writing (on paper as SOMEONE has been using my computer all the freaking summer) in my quest to understand my devastation at realizing that OH YEAH. We’re DONE having babies. So a part of my life is over. And so childhood’s end looms ever closer. And then I get wrinkled and die.
The end.
You have captured some truth here, Beck. And it is rather sad, the changing of our lives. But it is also so necessary for our children to grow up and us to mature as parents. Look forward to the future, remember the past with a wink and a smile, and truly enjoy today. Listen in whilst the baby is telling herself stories, enter into the boy’s adventures when he invites you and come along side your daughter and help her to ease into the years ahead. Parent don’t ave to become the enemy of their teenagers- they can become their allies and soft places to land.
Beautiful, true and poignant!
I feel this with each year, the fleeting nature of childhood. It’s like I blinked and my oldest is turning seven. Where did those years go? And yet, she’s so interesting to me…as she (and her siblings) grows I learn more about her and I think I couldn’t possibly want to go back and not know these remarkable people that my kids are.
lovely post 🙂 I have to remember that whenever I feel time is running to fast
oh, sister, I hear ya. It is odd, having one as old as 10 & one still as little as 3. I have both feelings at once – hurry up and stop being the terror that is 3! and also, slow down everyone, don’t you dare turn a day older than 10, ever.
I’ve said it before: it’s both a marathon and a sprint.
Beautiful post.
I’ve been wistful all summer. You captured it all beautifully here.
I’ll so miss my golden children. You got it spot-on.
You are really great at writing about these sorts of things. You really nail poignant parenting moments. I love it.
Oy…been feeling this keenly today so it’s funny that I should read this one of your posts first, after so long.
Childhood is so fleeting … I am so not ready for my precious little boys to become the rough and ready Boys that they will be come, not to mention teenagers.
Oh, boy.
I’ve been very much feeling this. With one girl gone on her own, and the my boy on the verge of the “adult” age of 18, and him being so responsible and such a hard worker, I’ve been trying to tell him to enjoy this last summer of being a “kid” and not to work so hard this summer. I thought it was for him that I was encouraging this but after reading this post, maybe it was all for me. Sigh.
Oh, I know. I really hear you, Beck. Lovely.
xo
very good post beck.
My husband and I have been together 20 years (almost) and when I remember being 20 I remember feeling old and so wordly like I had already lived a lifetime. And now 20 years seems so little to me…
*Huge hug*
I’d rather hug you than to express how strongly I feel about this post.
Beautiful light with just a little bit of dark. Just like I like ’em.
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