Mother of a 20 year old

January 1994

The children at school all agreed that I don't look old enough. "You're as old as you act: about six," they told me.

The problem with marking time in years in this way is that with each one that passes you feel as though you have less left. In a society that values youth over experience it can be easy to feel depressed at the thought of getting older but if I'm honest, I'm having much more fun now and when I look at my parents with their bridge parties, Ceilidh dancing, all the time in the world to read books and love of their grandchildren I think experience is probably better than youth. 

There have been birthdays in my life that I've not liked, like 29, 37 and 39; nothing years with no meaning. Twenty was one of those birthdays and my daughter seems to have inherited my dislike of this particular birthday. It is the end of your teenage years and the time when you feel that you should be grown up but being only half way through a degree there is no chance of true independence yet. The things she has to look forward to, though, are amazing.

She will travel, live in several places, possibly buy a house, decorate it several times, she will read loads, watch millions of films and plays and listen to hours of music, she might get married, have children, grandchildren and even great grandchildren, she will have jobs; some that excite her and some that bore her and, knowing her, she might even change the world.

 These odd birthdays should be those where we look forward to the wonderful possibilities ahead of us, rather than mourning the loss of a childhood or youth.