A Daily Dose of Zen Sarcasm!

Tromping The Ol’ Oeil


Et voilà, my eyes, originally uploaded by Madame Meow.

There is one very sticky thing that happens in large cities where agglomerations of people who have waited to have children –in favor of better pay, more education, or a higher level of maturity (ha!)– live.

Sometimes, the parents of young children tend to look like grandparents.

If you happen to be a normal person, whose brain-mouth connection is healthily developed, you may think to yourself, "Hmm, Isabella's mommy looks a bit older. She must have had her baby when she was… let me see…. 48, perhaps." And then you leave it at that, and everyone carries on with their day, happily in denial.

I try to keep my mouth shut.

But in my efforts to control the rude torrent of questions trying to escape, I can't help but stare. I have been told I don't just stare: I full-on bear down with all the might conferred upon my eyeballs by the District of Columbia and its second-class, non-voting representation.

I stare at the mother, and the child. Sometimes there is a daddy around, and I study him as well. I shift my glance from one to the other, and if I am perfectly honest, the whole time I stare, I am asking myself only one question:

"Aren't they tired?"

Because I am. I confess it: sometimes I see parents who are visibly older, and sometimes visibly happier than I am, and I just have to wonder why they are so carefree and…. young-looking, in a manner of speaking. Because I can barely drag my soul behind me some days with two little ones, and I will only be 50 by the time my younger son is ready to graduate high school. And yet, I have seen a fair share of parents (or maybe they really were grandparents?) who will be way beyond the "Ooh! Discount Tuesday! Fun!" age before their firstborn graduates kindergarten; and I see them carting these kids around and pushing them on swings and running after them at tot lots and helping them slide (and in some cases, dispensing proper sliding technique).

So yeah. This is a rudely roundabout way of saying that I don't get it.

It's also a roundabout way of saying that old people must simply have access to some good stuff.

This entry was published on June 2, 2010 at 2:13 am and is filed under DC Dukkha, Momzillas. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.

One thought on “Tromping The Ol’ Oeil

  1. Elora Lunasea on said:

    My cousin and his wife, found themselves pregnant for a second time when she was about 45(ish) and he, was pushing 55. The child is now about 5 and yep, dad and mom and tired with a large “T” wrapped around their necks. Their first son, who is a young teen has taken on the role of second parent for years now. He’s good at it, but I’m sure it isn’t something he prefers doing.
    They had considered not having the child (this, he confessed to me some time later) but couldn’t go through with it as they had struggled to have their first and tried hard to have a second for many years before this one surprised them without even trying for him (they had long given up at that point, realizing at 55/45 they were just getting too old for the parent trap). But mother nature had other plans for the two of them – as the case is for many others.
    So, time has rolled by and my cousin particular finds himself on the edge of retirement with a kid barely just starting his schooling. He sees no end in sight to being able to stop working at this point, but I can tell you this much; he dotes on that child, utterly adores him and looking at him and his wife, you know they made the right decision – as nutty as it appears looking in on it.

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