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.