I suppose the most trite line out there is, “I don’t feel old.” But the line nonetheless points to a basic truth: Life is subjective. And while I find discussions of age boring, there is no doubt that one such experience compels reflection: Watching one’s children grow up.
I remember years ago that the Bostoner Rebbe told me to take advantage of the years that our kids were home because they’re home for such a short time.
How wrongheaded that seemed.
It seemed then that there was no end to the time the kids were home. Each day was an enormous challenge. Now I am past that stage, but as I watch people in that stage, the pressures — if nothing else, the time pressure — of raising children are overwhelming. Diapers and lack of sleep; or, if past that into toddlerhood, the challenges of teaching children to speak and to be friends; or, if past that, the endless quandaries involved in the first years of schooling — motivation, performance, friendships (good and not so good); or, if past that, the brand new cascade of teenage issues; or, if past high school, the scary prospect of sending kids out on their own; or, if past that, the one thing you can’t even have the illusion of controlling: how and when the kids will marry.
Short time?
I couldn’t possibly imagine childraising as a short time.
In retrospect, the rebbe was right: The days are long and the years are short. And those years don’t come back. Suddenly, or so it seems one day, you’re not dealing with children anymore, but with adults. So life becomes subjective in a different way. Instead of trying to “invent” children, that is, to focus on them and where they’re doing, one has to invent, or reinvent, oneself, at least to an extent.
Meanwhile, that, too, is not done in isolation, because this super-counterintuitive reality sets in: In a certain way, your kids take up more time when they’re out of the home than when they’re in the home, especially if your kids are parents. This is something that parents whose children are still home have a very difficult time imagining; and, of course, it’s not true when the reference point is newborns. Yes, they take up more time than any other child of any age.
But when kids are grown and are raising their own kids, then your responsibility is not just singular — your kids. Not two, but three responsibilities come to color your life: the kids, the grandkids, and also the kids’ relationship to their kids.
By now, the subjectivities are piled so high that it is difficult to share them all with your peers.
Does this make you older?
That would depend on how close you are to your family. If you’re not close, then yes, perhaps the contemplation of age takes over. But if you are close to your grandkids, then your head is in youth; and, paradoxically, the constant incursion of youth heightens your awareness of your age.
Hey, and I don’t have great-grandkids. Who knows how that complicates the mind!
Let me put this much more prosaically.
I used to say: Wow, when the newborn is finally trained, look how much money I’ll save on Pampers.
Then, when the baby was trained, came preschool — so much more expensive than Pampers.
Then I used to say: Wow, when the preschool costs finally end . . .
Then, when they ended, came school — so much more expensive than preschool.
Then I used to say: Wow, when the school expenses end . . . well, they were only replaced by still higher expenses. The expenses just keep increasing.
Take this as a metaphor. Translating the economic reality into a language beyond dollars, the experience of watching your kids grow up is the experience of layers: the initial layer seems overwhelming, but there is still another, thicker layer in the waiting. With each successive layer, life becomes still more varied. And the layers never stop.
One hopes that more layers also mean more wisdom and joy. Inevitably, there is at least some regret and pain mixed in.
The ultimate joy is the ability to share all of the subjectivities that pile up in raising a family — not just to dwell on age, to rue it, to deny it or relish it. For in confession there is relief, and in friendship there is life.
