Spontaneous Visit

My favourite sister-in-law (amongst six) just dropped by for a few hours with her husband and two young daughters. They live about forty or so kilometres away from Luebeck. Not far really, but throughout this summer, with the extended heat wave, they preferred to spend their free time at the beach and not in the hot city where there was no air-conditioning* and the buses and traffic outside our living room windows made normal conversation practically impossible. Imagine that!

It was lovely to see them all again. But, boy, it is hard to imagine that our two children were so active and LOUD as their children are now. But, of course they were.

Isn’t it funny that we really do forgot how horribly, horribly strenuous young children can be? It was one of the things that I really found exasperating about my mother, when I went to visit years ago when my children were babies or young delightful beings, she persistently remarked about the fact that we (her) children never misbehaved or were strenuous. The underlying accusation being, she didn’t understand why we were raising her grandchildren to be otherwise. Which was a complete bunch of nonsense. We were monsters as young children. We were horrible miserable monsters as teenagers. Only as we became adults, did our nicer attributes begin to shine.

Now, I know that there are a trillion moments in-between the Matildas Moments (ala Hillaire Belloc) of young childhood, which makes raising young children a fascinating, exhilarating experience. But, let me tell you, parents of young children, the Golden Years are still to come.

Once the children do not poop in their pants, or scream at a glass-cracking frequency when their ice-cream cone accidentally falls on the sidewalk, or they can read books on their own, or they derive great pleasure in trying something new on a restaurant menu, your time has come. You can just relax, sit back, enjoy, adoringly, exultingly watch your children navigate their way along in life. The act of parenting shifts from swimming against the currents, to floating along with it. It is a pure delight.

Then of course, and thank heavens, puberty strikes, and you are back again to living on the razor edge. What more could you ask of life?

* There is no air-conditioning anywhere; even in businesses or shops, let alone private residences. Northern Germany did not become a tropical paradise until about five years ago. A sad statement on global warming, isn’t it?