Age 10 with a very bad perm
As a child I always wanted to be older. I know that’s kind of normal, but I think I took the desire to an another level. I was this strange child who went op-shopping for blazers with shoulder pads.
Power dressing at 9.
Some people say that at 21, life is the best it can be. I turn 32 today, and it’s only this year perhaps that I wish I was younger. I noticed distinctly grey regrowth in the bathroom at work last week, and despite the wishful thinking that it was paint in my hair (plausible, I’m renovating) the signs are all there that I’m now rolling down the hill rather than climbing up.
Having young children, I read a lot of stories. Many are modern, but some of them are classics that I remember from my own childhood. Jack and the Beanstalk, Where the Wild Things Are, Mary Poppins.
The words are all the same, but there is something that has changed with time.
Jack went to the market with his mother’s cow, instructed to sell it for a good price. He came back with magic beans. Anyone else think this was perfectly reasonable as a five year old? I read this story now and immediately see it from his mother’s perspective, deprived of perhaps 6 months’ income.
“Go sell the minivan Jack… oh, you traded it for 3 cocktail frankfurts? Very good then.”
In Maurice Sendak’s magical Where the Wild Things Are, Max is sent to bed without his supper. In primary school, this seemed dreadfully unfair.
Now, when Max glares defiantly at his mother, I think he had it coming.
In Mary Poppins, Michael’s childish whim costs his father his prestigious job at the bank. Don’t even get me started on that one.
Yes. I’m definitely getting older.
500m2 in Sydney 
Happy Birthday, it really isn’t all that bad, your children will keep you young. Age is a state of mind, if you think you are old you will be. I always tell people I’m 28, because that is how old I feel, well in my head. Of course I passed that age many years ago.
Happy birthday!
Even as a child I thought it was unfair that Michael’s dad got fired because of what his child did. I guess I was old even then…
Thanks Leanne. It certainly isn’t something that really worries me.
The kids certainly do add many elements of fun to life – I was presented this morning with a perfectly-wrapped garden hoe “Happy Birthday Mum – it’s a gardening tool!”. 🙂
L I hear you on this one, we’re in the middle of the distinct Mary Poppins craze (the film though) and watch it EVERY morning. I now watch or read most stories with a political and even feminist eye. I would have been completely oblivious to the suffragettes movements and what all that meant as a child watching Mary Poppins. I keep thinking about child labour issues when reading nursery rhymes and fairy tales (though i guess when these were written child labour was necessary for many families). I do also think as a mum like you, though I’d never send my kids to bed without dinner – it would just mean that they would be up in the wee hours hunting for food and interrupting my sleep. Our big threat is going to bed with out reading any books!
By the way Happy Birthday, seems like not only do we have the month of birth in common, but also the year! I also turned 32 recently.
Ooo happy birthday! I too think that Jack was irresponsible, but then what sort of mother sends her six year old to the shop by himself?
They are both to blame.
Enjoy your hoe 🙂