Last Friday, Tilly asked kids to imagine what they would be like when they were old.
Draw yourself as an old lady or old man. What do you want to do when you are much, much older, like a grandma or a grandpa? Will you be a master of something? Will you still like to play the same games that you play now? Will you be taller? There’s no way to know what you’ll be like when you’re much older, but it’s fun to imagine.
We’ll start with this drawing by Spencer (and commentary from his mom).
“When I’m old, I’ll be an astronaut in a spaceship flying to the moon. I have a brown beard and am wearing a purple mask.”
And from Tyler:
“When I’m old, I’ll be #1 in a race car race on Coin Island. We’re about to climb Bug Hill and we have to collect the green eggs for points. The white eggs are pretend eggs, so there’s a sign so we know they’re just pretend.”
As their mom noted, “Glad to see the boys aren’t going to go quietly into the sunset.”
Next up is a drawing from Joe, with some thoughts from his mom, who was trying to explain the prompt to Joe when the following ensued:
“When I am OLD?” Joe asked.
“Ok.” Joe said right away without even waiting for my explanation.
And then he quickly made this drawing (and then ran away.)If you ask me, I guess the person in the drawing seems a bit…
“I can’t believe I’m O…L…D.”
No?
I see that Joe has fallen prey to the typical “old man greenhand/brownfoot” problem. I’m hoping too avoid it myself.
When asked what she was going to be or do when she get old, Alden said that she was going to get fairy wings. From there, a narrative unfolded that I think is best told in her own words:
“First I climbed up a rope. Then I found a lot of beautiful stuff. Then I put all of the beautiful stuff on. Then I became the fairy princess. Then I met the prince. Then I flew to the fairy shop where they have lots of fairy candy.”
It seems to me that Alden wants candy and she craves the moment when she is sufficiently liberated to get more of it. To her, getting “old” means getting rid of the iron-fisted rule of Robbi and me.
As for Kato, he told us that when he got old, he was going to get to use scissors. It was another story of liberation. But then it took a tragic turn.
“Then I cut my hand, Papa.”
“Ouch! Does it hurt?” I asked him.
“No,” he said, deliberately, shaking his head back and forth, “It didn’t.”
I was relieved. It would be a shame to finally get old enough to use scissors only to learn that one is not quite old enough to use them safely.
I, for one, am going to get wrinkly when I get old. Really, really wrinkly.
Even my earlobes and kneecaps are going to be wrinkly. Even my nose.
When she gets old, Robbi is going to have a jet pack, and she is going to jet around with her family.
I love how distant and impossible the idea of old age is to kids. In the context of their own short lives, it is really no different than the idea of “later,” which is, of course, when all the good stuff happens.