I was recently at a family get-together where someone observed that it was good that we had kids at different times. “Those who need a baby fix can get their baby fix, and those who need a break from their babies can get a break.” And that’s exactly what happened. The older kids were delighted to dote on their toddler cousin, and the toddler’s mom got some much-needed adult conversation and rest.
After dinner, someone said, “We need some teenagers to do dishes.” (The oldest kid in attendance was, I think, 11.) Well, we didn't have teenagers to do dishes.
It resonated with something I’ve been thinking about lately: age diversity. The only environment where I experience any real age diversity is at extended family get-togethers and church-related picnics. When I was in school, I had an adult teacher and a lot of classmates my same age. When I was in college, I had older professors and a lot of classmates within a few years of my age. When I work at an office, I see only adults. When I go to daily Mass, I see almost entirely retired people, and I am an outlier. When I go shopping, I see adults and a few children who don’t really want to be there. When I go to parks, I see children and the adults who wouldn’t go to a park except for their children. I’ve been less able than I’d like to benefit from the wisdom of older adults or encourage those younger than I am, mainly because churches typically organize everyone by their demographic information when they host events.
It seems that every place is made either for adults or for children. It’s really hard to take kids to places made for adults, because those places are full of hazards and I'm constantly saying “don’t touch, don’t touch” or there’s just nothing for the kids to do, and it’s boring for them. And adults don’t usually enjoy going to places made for kids, because those places are boring for the adults.
I think our world would be better — for a number of reasons — if we had more spaces that were welcoming to a diversity of ages. When I was a new mom, I benefited from being in an environment that was heavily weighted toward retirees — I was a regular at daily Mass, and I recognized the other regulars, and many of them were just as delighted to hold the baby as I was to have my hands free for a minute to get my bearings.
At this family get-together, I saw that older children are capable of a lot of things that adults do. They can take on a lot of the tasks of childcare, like putting clothes on toddlers and pushing toddlers in swings, which most adults are way overqualified for, leaving moms freer for work that is challenging and inspiring to them, which contributes to the world at the level of their skill. Children can even do some paid work. In A Chair for my Mother, the narrator-protagonist is a young girl whose mother works at a diner. The girl stops by after school some days and washes dishes and fills the salt and pepper shakers, and gets paid for it. When I was a kid, my sister and I would crawl my grandpa’s backyard picking up pinecones. He would give us a dollar — a lot of money for us — and he would have an easier time mowing. Older children can benefit from these responsibilities, as can the younger children they play with and the employers (and grandpas!) they work for.
Now, I do not support sending children into mines, and I do support the education of children. I also don’t think it’s usually a good idea to leave a 10-year-old in charge of the toddler with no adults around at all. But an adult can do a lot more adult-level work (whether domestic or professional or whatever) when there’s a 10-year-old watching the toddler, even as the adult is still available to the kids in case there’s an emergency, or if they want to make lunch on the stove or do something else that’s above the 10-year-old’s skill level. And an employer can benefit from paying a small amount to a relatively unskilled child for an unskilled task, saving money and perhaps hiring a more skilled adult for something requiring more skill or maturity, which could benefit the company and the clients it serves.
If more places welcomed a variety of ages, then more adults would see children more often, and they would have a better idea of what things children are capable of at different ages, and they would be less judgy of how parents are parenting their own children. They would have a better idea of what kinds of things would make life easier for families, and they would do or provide those things, or pass laws that are more reasonable. Parents would find it easier to raise their families, because they wouldn’t have to constantly choose between adult places where they have to constantly say “don’t touch, don’t touch, I’m sorry that my child is behaving in a totally age-appropriate way” and child places where they don’t really want to be. They would probably find it easier to love their kids, because they would have fewer opportunities to see their children as “the reason we have to go to Chuck E. Cheese instead of a thing I might actually enjoy.” Those parents who have some control over the size of their families may be willing to increase the size of their families.
But the only places I see that truly welcome all ages are family get-togethers and church picnics. I think there’s a lot of value there, but that is all leisure time, and we would benefit from being able to work in shared spaces as well.
Where do you experience age diversity, or lack of it? What spaces do you wish were more open to a diversity of ages? What benefits do you see to having more age diversity in our world? What drawbacks? Given the constraints of the world we live in, how can we increase diversity of ages in different places?
Photo by Humphrey Muleba on Unsplash
When we were raising kids, my siblings all had kids at the same time, so none of us really had a chance to be the cool aunt or uncle. We were too busy parenting. It’s fun to see our kids enjoying their nieces and nephews in a way that I couldn’t. In the other hand, our kids are still close to their same-age cousins, while my grandkids are too far apart in age to really be close as adults. We can rejoice in the blessings we experience and work towards the ones we’d like to add.