Dear LPG, 

There are so many subjects that catch your thoughts once you have retired and have a bit more time to think about them, and I felt that this one needed writing down even though it is not unique.  I wonder if any of my fellow readers can identify with my thoughts on childhood?

For everyone, life is a collection of changing experiences.  Childhood seems to last for ever when you are emerged in it and all the things those little ones need to learn take up so much of that time.  When I was young, the business of learning what the world expected of me was a hard lesson that I so often got wrong, and I remember not being able to wait until I was old enough to do some of the things that my parents told me I was not allowed to do.  That feeling of having parents looking after your every need progressively turns into one when it seems as if their watching you and checking on  your every move will never end.

But it does, usually while you are trying to get through school and learn what the people around you expect of you, which is a long-winded experience.   We then get our first taste of the world of work and adult life as childhood finally comes to an end.  Then, before you know it, you find yourself in the shoes of parenthood and you think that the sleepless nights, nappy changing and feeding will last forever, but just as you get to grips with all that, they get older and there are still problems; different ones, but they are just as complicated.   The feeding and potty training is swapped for nights of worry because they have not got home when you expected them to, and their choice of friends and hobbies topped that ‘conflict with the children’ list for me.  You become the bad authoritative people in their lives and then those little conflicts begin. 

Watching your own children grow up while they find their feet is always clouded by the responsibilities of parenthood, and then the years continue to creep past while you find a bit of freedom from those responsibilities.  The next time we have a chance to take a good look at life in its infancy often arrives when you first meet your grandchildren.  This is when the whole cycle starts again while you watch from a distance, often unable to offer any advice because where you had your parents to fall back on when you struggled through parenthood, your children have the internet to answer nearly every parenting question…  

The days when a grandparent’s experience was needed is something that is fast disappearing… 

TS, Lee