While growing up, I looked around and saw all of my friends’ parents, and they looked pretty glamorous to me. My mom and dad were both very hardworking, and both know how to dress and are proud of their appearances.
Still, there were days when it upset me that my father would come to pick my sister and me up from our after-school program, and the chaperone would let us know that “grandpa is here to pick you up,” simply because he had grey hair at a young age.
However, these small things do not diminish all of the wonderful things that having older parents can bring.
For one, they have been around longer. Their advice has likely already been proved true before. Young people are more likely to follow the advice of someone who has already been proven right.
While having older parents will certainly make it harder to get away with things, it is also a blessing. And while you may not get away with everything, an older parent will likely overreact less than a younger parent might.
None of this is to say that having young parents is bad. Having young parents is probably great, too, although I’m not sure I am qualified to argue that. It must be nice to know you always have a friend in your mother or father who was in your position not too long ago.
Growing up with older parents was a struggle in my teen years at times, but I am definitely grateful for them now. Although in high school I wished they wouldn’t stick their noses in so many places, it seems easier now for them to guide me through life and help with difficult decisions which younger parents may not have had to make yet.
Having older parents sparked a creativity in me from a young age — my dad took us on “surprise trips,” which were their own kind of adventures — and also created a kind of responsibility for my own actions that I’m not sure I would have found if I didn’t have the right people to guide me there.
