Age differences

Saturday, January 10, 2009

Have you ever noticed the way age differences sometimes make a difference, and at other times of life, just don't matter so much? This is one thing I've appreciated about educating my children at home. It seems that 'narrow peer group' is widened among homeschoolers. My children have always played well with children of all ages, whether their own age or three to four years older or younger than themselves--sometimes even as much as six years younger than themselves. But as the older kids are 11 and nearing 13, I'm starting to see age gaps meaning a little bit more. For example, Destry has some good friends, Cole and Wyatt, who are 15 and 14. Destry is 11. They used to have wonderful exploits together, camping out, exploring creeks, making wooden swords, having jousting meets and such. This last year, that age gap has become increasingly noticeable, as the older boys are just at a different stage of life that has less in common with my son who looks increasingly immature when compared to them. When we get together with this family, Destry has been playing with their younger brother, Tallis, who is almost eight. Same age difference, but somehow 8 and 11 are closer than 11 and 14. This is not a problem, the boys aren't mean to him or anything, just an observation about the times of life. There are people who will read this blog who used to seem a lot older than me, but now, well. . .when we're in the same stage of life, those years seem to melt away. I thought this picture was sort of cute as I am contemplating this topic today. We had a costume party/halloween alternative a couple months ago where the families of the ladies from my book discussion group all got together. There were several children among all the families, and it was cute to see how they divided themselves according to their interests. This picture is of the five preteen and teen girls with the two boys previously mentioned. Instead of running around like hoodlums with wooden guns and swords like the boys in the 7-12 age bracket, these young men are just hanging out visiting with the costumed young ladies. Destry was no more interested in standing around visiting than these boys were in playing knights. Funny, how that age gap just widened.