That’s Awesome for an Old Person

Once a child’s perception of old age was wrinkles, grey hair and perhaps a stooped back and slowing of movement. As far as I was concerned, my parents and teachers had been old ever since I’d been aware of them.

These days children are a little more confused. Grandma should be old, but in fact she neither looks it nor acts it. She doesn’t have grey hair, it’s blond and spiky. She isn’t slow moving and stooped, in fact she runs half marathons and climbs mountains.

Age is no longer an indication that someone is old. Many older people are extremely active, many younger people act in a slow moving, slow thinking way. Many of us have trouble guessing how old someone might be. I think that’s wonderful. Old age is all in the mind.

Children, however, are the tellers of truth as they see it. A couple of years ago I was day relief teaching in a school I hadn’t been to before. The students were 11 and 12 year olds, an age I’d never taught before. These weren’t little children, they were pre-teens, they had the capabilities of eating me and spitting me out again.

I decided the best way to approach it was to show them I was an active, lively person and able to keep up with them. I’d competed in my first women’s triathlon the day before and so started the day by telling them about it.

“I did the women’s triathlon yesterday,” I announced.

“That’s awesome for an old person,” came the reply.

There was stunned silence in the class.

“Well, you are old aren’t you?” he continued, realizing he may have said the wrong thing.

I grinned. “Yes,” I said, “I am old. And yes, it was awesome. Thank you.”

That class and I got on well together whenever I had to teach them for the rest of the year.

Image by infomatique via Flickr