Recently, I was flying across the country. I had only two bags, and was probably watching a movie or something. There was a two year old who kept talking. Her mom profusely apologized to me.

“I’m so sorry,” she said, extremely flustered and seemingly embarrassed about her daughter.

Another time, I was sitting in my office, and this toddler waddled in. He looked around, in awe at the various computers we had set up and running. His dad came in, and apologized much like the mom on the plane.

I always feel bad when parents feel like they need to apologize to me. I may be a college student without any kids, but that doesn’t mean I am more important than those toddlers. Those babies are humans too. This world is just as much mine as it is theirs.

OK, there are those times when rather unpleasant temper tantrums occur, but we’ve all been there. I still remember a gigantic fit I threw when I was three about not getting a toy when I wanted it. We all started out super tiny, let’s show some respect. They can’t be where we are.

It’s time for those of us well past the age of five to humble ourselves and be happy that these little humans are exploring their world. After all, all this hard work we do that falsely labels us as too good for a toddler’s company is shaping the world that these toddlers will be leading.

We live in a world that acts like the only valuable age range is between twenty and thirty five. I’m not going to lie, this age range is pretty freaking fun. You have a lot of freedom and don’t have a lot of cares yet. However, we don’t get to be twenty-one for forever, and the world would be pretty awful with a bunch of carefree twenty-one year olds.

Instead of hating on certain age ranges, let’s marvel at either how far they have come or how much they still get to experience. Let’s stop seeing the elderly as an age group that can’t access their email accounts without assistance and recognize that their generation and those before theirs did the research necessary for us to have email. And that babbling two year old? Maybe he’ll be a future president, he likes talking, doesn’t he? And that destructive toddler? Maybe she’ll be a scientist since she likes seeing how stuff is made.

In a society that snarls at yet to be actualized potential and scowls at antiquated accomplishment, let’s remember how far we’ve come, and how far we still have to go. We weren’t born as a twenty-one year old, there was a lot we had to learn, and we aren’t going to stay at twenty-one either.