Always greener - Shawn's Sense with Shawn Loughlin

My son, right now, is car-obsessed. If you ever see him on the street or at home, he will always have at least one Hot Wheels in hand, sometimes one in each. We are also treated to a common refrain as we walk or drive anywhere or watch anything on television with him.

 

As we go for a drive or read through one of his many car books, he’ll point at a picture of a car and say, “I want to drive that car when I grow up, please.” When we tell him that he can, he cheerfully says, “Thank you!”

 

In the early stages of these exchanges, we urged him to not wish his youth away, but, eventually, we just gave over to it and let him believe that he’ll be driving all of these cars when he grows up. (It’s likely worth noting that he’s all over the map as far as these vehicles are concerned. They’re not all luxury cars. They can be the most beat-up, 17-year-old car - in the case of my car - up to the glamorous Corvettes and Lamborghinis of his car books to work vehicles like snowplows and fire trucks.)

 

Looking at my kids, young, care-free and with their whole lives ahead of them, it’s hard not to want to convince them to enjoy things now before they grow up and are exposed to the reality of a world full of responsibilities and, increasingly around the world, tragedy, but then it’s hard not to remember how focused I was on what I was going to do when I grew up when I was a young kid. I’m sure we all were looking forward to the day that we could do anything we wanted with no one left to tell us that we couldn’t do something, couldn’t see something, couldn’t buy something because we weren’t yet old enough to do it.

 

So, as they traverse the world, wanting to do everything without being told they’re not old enough, I can see there being a certain frustration in that. When I was a kid, I was always looking ahead. Playing baseball, I was always jealous of the older boys and the level of play they saw every week and couldn’t wait until I reached that level too. I wanted to drive, I wanted to buy lottery tickets, I wanted to be able to go anywhere and do anything, all without any regard for just how lucky I was to be young at the time. 

 

Meanwhile, I think Jess and I look at our little people and think of just how lucky they are to be young and not have to worry about a job, paying bills, appliances breaking down, buying new cars (Cooper might be interested in having to buy a new car) and the like. They get to play all the time and really have lives that are insulated from the real world to as great a degree as we can achieve. But, I suppose where I was going with this is that we all want what we can’t have.

 

As I celebrated a birthday (last Tuesday, which is when I wrote this) and my daughter looks ahead to hers in about a month, I was acutely aware of the passage of time. Tallulah has been drawing pictures of me and Jess like Number Blocks, if you’re familiar with them, with our age hovering above our head like a halo. It’s easy to get caught up in how fast it all goes by, especially with the kids. With our oldest turning six next month, it feels like it’s been a long while and no time at all.

 

However, there has been part of the experience that has made us wish that we could freeze time. So many phases with the kids have been so much fun and, as we move from one to another, we try to dedicate to memory what made us laugh, what made us proud and what made us scratch our heads. Most of all, we’re being careful not to wish it all away and to enjoy every second of it.