My child is how old?

Over the past few weeks, I’ve seen a condescending meme pop up in my Facebook feed that criticizes how many parents choose to state the ages of their young children. Here 'tis: 

The meme itself is presented in something of a contextual vacuum, suggesting that this hypothetical person who has the gall to describe his or her child’s age in months rather than years has somehow committed a grievous social gaffe, clouding the mind of an innocent bystander with the kind of extraneous details that require complex mathematical formulae to convert the data into a simpler and more manageable figure. The comments and reactions that often accompany the meme go several steps further in the critique of parents’ audacious use of such fancy and exotic numbers, including statements like: “If I ever have a kid, I’ll never be one of those people who says stuff like that” and “After a kid is a year old, months are irrelevant.”

Seems simple, doesn’t it? After reading a hastily produced Internet meme along with some self-righteous quips of approval, you’re probably ready to reassess your own positions on age and semantics, aren’t you? Well...Not if you’re a well-informed parent, you’re not.

Is it beyond the pale to refer to a two year-old child as being “24 months”? I might grudgingly yield to that very small point. Maybe. But for most parents, measuring the early life of children under two is most appropriately done in months, not years. The data implicit in describing a child as “13 months,” “18 months” or even “24 months” can be noteworthy. In many respects the information provided in these increments concerns matters of health and development and describing a 19 month-old kid as simply “a year old” is an unnecessary oversimplification. Consider these stages and milestones according to parenthelp123.org:

At 12-18 months, a child should typically:

    •    Walk by himself
    •    Pick up small objects, put them on top of one another, and put them in or dump them from containers
    •    Feed herself with a spoon
    •    Say 2 or 3 different words
    •    Point to things or pictures when named

At 18 – 24 Months (2 Years), a child should typically:

    •    Walk by himself
    •    Pick up small objects, put them on top of one another, and put them in or dump them from containers
    •    Feed herself with a spoon
    •    Say 2 or 3 different words
    •    Point to things or pictures when named
    •    Walk up and down stairs with her hand held
    •    Put 2 words together (“more juice”)
    •    Take off socks and shoes
    •    Copy another child’s play
    •    Move his body in time to music

And this is how you look when you
re-post that crappy meme...

The specific milestones from month to month could be drilled down a bit further but the salient point here is clear: Many parents use months instead of years very specific reasons. When one parent talks to another, the information that’s passed along by describing a child’s precise age is significant. It could be implied that “My kid is 13 months which means he feeding himself and demonstrating some fine motor skills already.” Or, it could be a way to gingerly note that a child’s development is slow without actually having to come right out and saying it. It could even be a way to introduce the fact that the parent needs to get rid of some older baby clothes that are for a kid who is no longer fitting in her 9 to 12 month-sized onesies.
Hey, I know we’re not all “breeders” but why should parents have to dumb things down over the arbitrary preferences of people whose apparent raison d'être is the systematic avoidance of a little extra quantitative data? Should we simplify every conversation along similar lines? How about this:



“Hey Al, how did you get to work today?
"
“Well, I took I-675 to I-70 and then I got off at Route 202 and took the back roads to avoid the traffic.”

“A car, Al. You drove a car.”

Rest assured, folks: Generally speaking, parents don’t use special terminology to feel superior to people who either don’t have kids or who have already decided that they will never have children. At the very worst, saying that a child is “24 months” instead of “two years” is likely a habit that diligent parents pick up as they carefully watch their children grow and develop. And there might be a little piece of reluctance on the part of some parents to say goodbye to their “babies” and start thinking of their little ones as two year-old toddlers. At the end of the day, if something this innocuous is so upsetting to you that you feel compelled to respond with derision, then it’s a safe bet that there are a lot of other things in the realm and practice of parenting would likely elude you, as well. It doesn’t take too much effort to applaud a snarky meme but it takes a whole lot of compassion, patience and critical thinking to raise a child.

Stephan Denisovich on Fatherhood

Anton Semenovych Makarenko
1888-1939

I recently started reading Anton Makarenko’s 1937 A Book for Parents. Makarenko is perhaps best known for his work The Road to Life which was originally published in Russian as The Pedagogical Poem. I read the first volume of The Road to Life several years ago and enjoyed it very much, so I was excited when I found a copy of A Book for Parents some years later. But, as is the case for many bibliophiles far and wide, I always have more books than spare time on my hands. Recently though, I finally got around to giving this book the attention it deserves. I'm delving into it with special enthusiasm now that I am a stay-at-home dad, as I am always in search of new and interesting perspectives on parenthood.

A Book for Parents applies Makarenko’s theories regarding childhood education to the practice of parenting. 

Makarenko wrote of his experiences and observations of life in rural Russia in the decades following the Civil War of 1917-1922 but there’s a lot of wisdom and insight to be found in his writings, even with the passing of almost a century. Take, for instance, Makarenko’s reminiscences of Stephan Denisovich Vetkin, a former teacher who changed professions and became a blacksmith in the hope that he could earn a better living for his wife and 13—yes 13—children. Makarenko, in an effort to help out Vetkin, finds him the opportunity to work some overtime hours at the local factory. When Vetkin politely declines, Makarenko is surprised by his decision to pass on the chance to earn additional wages. Vetkin replies by explaining why time at home with his family is sometimes much more important than earning a little extra money:

“...don't my children need me? They need a father to be a father to them and not what I've seen sometimes, not a father but a horse: dull eyes, hump-back, nerves no good for anything and about as much soul as a dead duck! What's the use of such a father, I'd like to know? Just for earning the daily bread. Why, better to bury him straight away and let the children be fed by the state—the state won't grudge them. I've seen one or two of those fathers: strains his guts out, doesn't understand anything—next day he's on the floor, dead, and the children are orphans; and if they aren't orphans they are idiots, because there ought to be joy in a family and not just grief all the time. And people go on boasting: ‘I've given up everything for the children!’ Well, you were fools for doing so, that's all I can say—you gave up everything and the kids got sweet nothing. Maybe our food isn't very rich, but there's a bit of life and company in our family. I'm well, Mother's a cheerful one and they've all got souls in their bodies.” ¹

Makarenko is initially skeptical of Vetkin’s reasoning but upon paying a visit to the Vetkin family one evening, he is won over by their “healthy collective spirit” and “good creative optimism.”

In today’s America, there is a vocal contingent who asserts that family life should be grounded in socially conservative “traditions” and guided by metaphysical tenets. But Vetkin’s example seems to show that patience, persistence and priorities are among the most important components of a family environment in which happiness, compassion, and love will prevail and flourish.

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1. This quote is drawn from the first English edition of A Book for Parents, which was published in 1954 (translation by Robert Daglish).