"i used to think that the sun and the moon were the same," my stepson said. He had been told that they were different but did not believe it. He must have convinced himself that they were two sides of the same coin-gold and silver-or perhaps he thought that at night the sun faded, as if by a dimmer switch, to become the moon. At what point he had to drop this view, he did not tell me. But his poetic image deserves to survive as a metaphor for what happens to childhood convictions: again and again, the sun turns into the moon.
When I was nine, I drew up a list. It was a list of the things my mother did that I vowed I would never do when I grew up to be her age. The list was long and quickly lost. But I still remember the main points.
I vowed I would never worry about sleep. I didn't like it when I came downstairs at night, unable to sleep. My mother would sound displeased and panicky. My father would be more soothing, offering a glass of milk or an apple, telling me not to worry. If my children could not sleep, I resolved, I would be like my father. I would never be agitated, would not tell them that they would be exhausted the next day. And what's more, I knew that I would never institute a "quiet time" after dinner when my children were not wanted. My mother was possessive of this time. Why? Why did she want to be "quiet"? Why be so obsessed with sleep and quiet? Why be alive at all?
And then there was the obsession with age. This wasn't a criticism of my parents in particular, it seemed to involve all the adults I knew. One thing was certain, I would never be the sort of grown-up who walked into a house full of children and asked them how old they were or told them it was astonishing that they had grown. Whatever did they expect us to have done? Stay stunted? Grown-ups were often shy and maladroit. They did not, I remember feeling, know how to talk to children.
Some of them did not know how to converse at all. Even when they were with each other, the asinine question of age still seemed important to them. I'd hear haggard, middle-aged people roaring with laughter about the fact that they were getting old. Their laughter sounded forced to me and age seemed a non-subject. Why did they go on about it so much?
Just as important: I would never, ever, wear lipstick when I was grown up. Women, my mother included, looked far nicer without it. It was so obviously fake. Why bother? Shopping for clothes was also a frightful chore. I would not linger over it when I was older. Not that I was a tomboy. I was inordinately relieved to have been born a girl. I considered it a lucky escape. I would never have to work or go to war. I looked forward to staying at home with a husband to look after me. When asked what I might like to be in the future, I had no idea. I thought I might become an opera singer or a cleaning lady-I couldn't think of anything else a woman might be able to do. I was wrong-about almost everything. I can't sing and I am not much good at sweeping. But that is only the beginning.
I should explain that, as I write this, I am not feeling well. I was woken at 4.30am by one of the children and in spite of crossly telling him to be quiet I did not get back to sleep again until 6am by which time the other children were awake. Also: I didn't get to bed until quite late because I needed some child-free time in which to enjoy the brief illusion of being free and capable of unencumbered thought. It is not possible, at my age, to think straight unless you have had enough sleep.
We have never been this old, my partner says-and laughs. It is hard to know what to do. I try to put my best face forward. I find a little lipstick helps. Perhaps I am fulfilling Oscar Wilde's prediction about women becoming their mothers. But I don't think so. It is one of the privileges of childhood to think you are immortal. I would love to be cavalier about sleep, age, quiet and cosmetics. But it is easier when you are nine than when you are 42.
I try not to hail children with the good news about their height... but overhear myself doing it regardless, as though programmed to do so. My resistance to loud noises weakens the older I get and quietness becomes, in every way, more attractive. William Golding once said that the older he got, the more uncertain he became. It is true: childhood is full of certainties. Most of them I have now outgrown like old shoes. Except-that reminds me-of one. I remember telling my class when I was at primary school that you could always tell a person's character by their shoes. I was surprised when everyone laughed. I still am. It is no joke. Look at your shoes.
