The following was originally printed at The Vertex on December 28, 2009.
Last Thursday morning, my younger sister had a baby boy, thus transforming me into an uncle and my parents into grandparents. There were a couple things that surprised me over the past week or so, even though these are things I was totally aware of beforehand. First of all, babies are incredibly small. Now of course, I knew this. Everyone knows babies are small. Being small is the defining characteristic of a baby. But I didn't quite realize just how small. The baby (he won't be named till Thursday; until then he is just "the baby") is 18 inches long, which is roughly the distance between my wrist and my shoulder. Simply put, he could comfortably fit into the sleeve of my sweatshirt. Secondly, I didn't anticipate how quickly and strongly one could feel connected to another person who does not possess the ability to walk, speak, or do anything at all. But you the relationship doesn't require any of those components because the attachment emerges from the simple fact that they are related to you.I had heard this was the case but I guess on some level I never fully believed it. Well, it's true.
Coincidentally, it was also over this past weekend where I experienced "the moment." For the first time, it fully hit me that I had totally progressed past childhood and was now a full fledged adult. I say "coincidentally" because despite its close proximity to my sister giving birth to a child and making me an uncle, the two were basically unrelated. Now, of course, most sane people would say that a 26 year old law school graduate living in Manhattan became an adult long ago, but I never felt that way. In my own mind, in the way I viewed the world and related to it, I still thought of myself as a kid. I shirked responsibility, spent most of my time watching television and following sports, and focused the majority of my attention on having as much fun as possible. Doesn't sound very adult to me. However, I had overlooked one fundamental factor in this equation, a variable that was brought to my attention this weekend in the form of a simple, yet significant element - snow.
This past weekend, a blanket of snow covered much of the northeast. I was spending the weekend at my sisters in-laws in Long Island to celebrate the arrival of the newest member of our family. But the snow had put a slight damper on the celebration. My sister and the baby were scheduled to be discharged from the hospital Saturday night and my parents and brother in law spent much of the day concerned that the snow would pile up too much and that by the time Saturday night rolled around, the roads would not be safe enough to get the baby home. Personally, I was more concerned about getting stuck in Long Island for the night and having trouble getting to the Jets game on Sunday (although as it turned out, I probably would have been better off skipping it.) But for all of us, the snow mainly represented an inconvenience, a potential hurdle to our plans. Or so I assumed.
Later on Saturday, I had the chance to eavesdrop on a conversation between two young children (and frankly, who would ever pass on such an opportunity) and realized that they had a very different take on the situation. They saw the snow falling to the ground and their mind immediately went to the two most magical words a child's brain can conjugate - "snow day." They saw one flake of snow and instantaneously, waking up early, bus rides, homework, and school lunch were transformed into a fantasy of sleeping in, sled rides, snowmen, and hot chocolate. When an adult sees snow, he thinks inconvenience; when a child sees it, he thinks opportunity.
But that just about summarizes the difference between children and adults, doesn't it? To adults, anything that diverges from the norm, that presents any sort of roadblock to your daily routine, is a burden. Adults want to get through their day in the easiest, most hassle-free way possible so that they can go through it all again the very next day and hopefully make it to the weekend without anything too catastrophic getting in the way. Kids, on the other hand, welcome chaos and spontaneity. Anything they haven't experienced before is exciting to them; the prospect of the unknown will always trump the predictability of everyday life for a child. Adults want stability; children want adventure.
And I think that is a big part of why people have children. Sure, it allows them to extend their genealogy and to build a family, but more so it allows them to be kids again. Having children affords parents the opportunity to experience childhood a second time, only this time they experience it through the eyes of their kids. Adults don't go sledding when it snows or go to Disney World for vacation. But parents do. Parents get to revisit the joys and excitement of being a kid every single day, only this time with the wisdom and understanding of an adult. They get to experience the wonders and unpredictability of childhood while in the body of an adult. And it's a good thing they do because you may not know this, but babies are really small.