Growing up

While driving in through the school gate today, I pointed out to a tall, strapping young man walking ahead. "Is he your classmate?", I asked YK.

"He's Sean, the one I bit when we were in primary school, remember?" YK replied.

Oh, I remember now. Sean's father called me up one day many years ago, complaining that YK had bit his son during a scuffle in class. They were just little kids then. Sean is now a brawny young man who towers over me.

Then there's YK's best friend years ago, Darrell, who used to spend many hours at our farm during the school holidays. Five years ago, I brought them to the pet shop to look at puppies and we came home with baby Rusty! Eventually Darrell adopted a dog and named him Rusty too. They're no longer in the same class but I still bump into him in school. Darrell has shot up so much now, he's easily one of the tallest boys in school. Now he feels a little shy and awkward when he sees me.

It's amazing how quickly kids grow. When friends see my sons, they never fail to exclaim, "Wah, they're so BIG now!" I know they can't help it because I am guilty of doing the same thing too. Being teenagers, the kids feel embarrassed and sometimes wonder what the fuss is about. "Are they saying we're fat?" they ask sometimes.

It's simply because we're witnessing so much changes in them during their growing up years unlike us adults who can only get older and fatter. Not that the teenagers care anyway.

When I was growing up, I didn't pay any special attention to other people's parents. All the mothers in our neighbourhood were simply lumped under one classification known as 'mothers'.

When mum and I we were reminiscing about our younger days and old neighbours, she said Aunty Kim is 20 years older than Aunty Leng.

"Oh really? They all looked the same to me!" I could never tell, or perhaps I simply didn't care at that time. In fact, in my memory bank, my grandma always looked the same to me whether she was 50 or 80 years old.

I wonder if our kids feel the same way about us too.