Milestones

 

We have learned to look at life in segments. Infancy, childhood, adulthood, as if they are each defined by a hard and fast line.

Using years to understand our expectations of people is the way the world has mostly chosen to go, but not necessarily the best.

There is one train of thought that says a child is not ready to go on to first grade until he has lost his baby teeth. I'm not sure I can agree with that. One of my children, who is now a lawyer, lost his first tooth well into his eighth year. He excelled in school, but perhaps his emotional well being might have increased had we held him back.

It is easier for the world to set general standards like people can drive at 16 or vote at 21, or retire at 65 in order for there to be more order, but there is no proof that everyone is ready to do these things at that particular age. We just don't seem to have any other way to determine who is ready in a fair and equitable way.

But we cannot rely entirely on nature either. Children are capable of having children long before they are capable of being parents and taller children can reach many things they are not ready to handle before shorter children who may be entirely ready.

Human beings love to celebrate and anniversaries give them many reasons. It is indeed a coup to keep a child alive year after year, but it is a bigger one to fulfill that child's actual potential at the same time. 

The trick is to balance physical and emotional well being so those accomplishments provide happiness or contentment within the human being. That is harder to measure.

Some children learn to smile, not because they are particularly happy, but because it soothes the people around them. 

Being resourceful is a very useful skill.