Dear LPG, 

I read what CC had to say on the subject of childhood ambitions (►►►) which got me thinking about an often-missed aspect of our development. 

One fact guaranteed in this life is that if you are now a grandparent, you were once a parent; even more undeniable, we were all once children. 

I am a hands-on Grandma with a couple of little ones I have been looking after since their mum, my daughter and her husband went back to work after maternity and paternity leave respectively. 

Except for the Covid-19 interruption, over the past four years, I have enjoyed it. However, sometimes there are those days when I don't want to spend an hour making another Thomas the tank engine railway track layout or reading another Pepper Pig story. But just when you think it will never end, it's suddenly school time. 

I have noticed something, though, that until they get to school or playgroup, they are not bothered about what the rest of the world thinks of them. What Mum, Dad and the other grownups say registers, but there is an air of their importance thrown in, even if they are being reprimanded. They only start to worry about what everyone else thinks about them once at school, and then there is no turning back.

Many things have changed for today's children, but when you take away our post-war childhoods and add the hi-tech computerised toys and televisions, our youths were not that different.

Many of us learn to spend far too much time worrying about what the people around us think of us, and we change ourselves to be what we believe will impress those people. If we didn't worry about what other people think, we would not learn the importance of not hurting them, not making enemies of them, and not upsetting them. There is nothing wrong with that, but many of us worry too much about looking good in the eyes of others and trying to impress them while our actual dreams and aspirations get pushed to the back of our bucket list queue.

So, now that I have my days back again, I think that I will be doing some of the things that my family and friends didn't know I wanted to, and I strongly suggest that this is something that retired people have the opportunity to do, but far too few of us take advantage of.

Perhaps my closeness to those young kids has got me thinking about just how important it is to let the best aspects of the real you get a public viewing from time to time, whatever the rest of the world thinks.

GJ, Penge