Taking A Stand: I won’t reveal my mother’s age
When you’re young, birthdays are a time for celebration, presents and parties. There’s nothing better than knowing it’s your birthday since you’ll be treated like royalty and get all kinds of goodies.
However, there comes a time in a person’s life when a line is crossed and birthdays are more about doing math to see how many more you got to go, rather than if you got that new toy you were wanting. Presents, which were once the main focus of your birthday, become items to temporarily divert your attention from the ticking clock.
I was reminded of this quirk in the human psyche this week when my mother celebrated what could be considered a milestone birthday. Now, I’m not dumb enough to reveal what number birthday it was seeing women are rabidly guarded about their age.
Let me illustrate this by pointing out I’ve done several obituaries here on women who instructed, in their last wishes, not to have their ages printed on their obituaries because they didn’t want anyone to know how old they were. Revealing a woman’s age is equivalent to telling them they’ve “put on a little weight.” And, as we know, this doesn’t fly well.
Granted, men also have issues about getting older, but they generally don’t make a big deal about revealing their age. Ask a woman, over the age of 30, how old she is and many of them will look at you like you’re standing in front of them in your “Kiss me I’m Irish” boxers.
So anyway, we’re celebrating my mom’s birthday this week and she tells my 5-year-old her age. Well, poor little Jack can’t even count that many yet, so he considers her age to be off the scale. I’m sure his obvious surprise about the high digits in his granny’s age isn’t exactly thrilling to the birthday girl.
At that point, he puts his foot down and refuses to let his granny have any more birthdays. Instead, he offers to have her birthdays himself, seeing his age is a more manageable single-digit number. This offer comes after his suggestion that we buy her a Game Cube and put it at his house so she can come out there and play it. His suggestion was reminiscent of the year I suggested to my father that we buy her a football for her birthday.
Given his statements about her age, I quickly point out that there were many people older than his granny, at least in the Bible, and that everyone gets older. I then try to use the birthday as a lesson in life, telling him about how he won’t be a child forever. I’m feeling real good about my fatherly advice.
That is, until he reminds me he’s just 5 years old and that anything more intense than a stimulating discussion on how to beat Bowzer on his Mario game, goes right over his head.
“So, how old are you daddy?” he responds to my diatribe about aging. Not realizing where this is going, I respond that I’m 38.
At that point he sits there, starting at the age of 5, and begins counting on his fingers to 38. Wow. This took a while. He kind of looked at me with a surprised glance every time he had to change hands during his count.
“Surely he isn’t going to count all the way up,” I thought to myself. “Man, 38 sure does take a long time.”
After his extensive counting spree, he finally reaches 38 and looks up at me, ready to reveal some kind of Socratic wisdom.
“Wow, 38 sure is a lot,” he says matter-of-factly.
“Yeah, sure, 38 is a lot,” I respond, wishing I hadn’t brought up the whole discussion.
“Hey, daddy,” he then began. “Do you think we can get you a Game Cube for your next birthday?”
(Duane Sherrill is a reporter for the Standard. He can be reached at 473-2191 or by e-mail at [email protected].)