The last few times that I’ve gone home, I’ve been struck by how much older my parents, and their peers, seem. The wrinkles in their faces have multiplied, their backs are creakier than before, and my mom can never seem to remember to get more milk from the grocery store. I feel slightly disloyal saying this, but I sometimes forget that while I am growing up and becoming an adult, they are also growing older. It is easy to get wrapped up in the excitement of learning how to live your own life and learning that you can be a person of your own worth and fruition. However, when that initial excitement wears off, you look around and realize that, during this discovery, your parents have been evolving as well.
Every person has that moment when their parents start treating them as peers worthy of opinions and inputs. Whether it is helping them with new technology that only our generation understands, pushing the cart for them at the grocery store, or advising them about how to deal with a professional problem at work, this moment of role-reversal is as disconcerting as it is pride-inducing. In asking for our opinions and help, our parents signal that we are both transitioning into a new phase of life: our generation into adulthood and theirs into old age.
We sometimes forget that while we are learning to be independent, they are learning to be more dependent. They’ve already got the independence thing covered, so they are learning to be more dependent on their spouses for company and support, for their kids for input and millennial knowledge, and to their bank accounts for allowing them more days off. While we are becoming invested in a work place and in our own educations, they are learning how to think about slowing down, taking more time off, and learning how to enjoy themselves and appreciate their lives and families.
I initially called this evolution “growing old,” but I don’t necessarily think that it is an apt term. While their bodies may be physically aging, this transition into recognition of and appreciation for life and support isn’t necessarily one that necessitates emotional aging. I like to think of it as a parallel transformation into a new phase of life and learning to appreciate its changes. They aren’t growing old, they’re growing aware.
