Ages and Stages

Hello,

If you're a parent, you know one of the strangest parts of parenting is that the challenges never really go away. They just change. For example, there was a time when my husband and I spent countless hours wondering whether our kids were developing "normally." We met with pediatricians. We read books. We talked with other parents. We asked questions like, "Is this normal?" and "When should I expect this?" We celebrated first steps without expecting perfect balance, and we knew toddlers weren't supposed to regulate big emotions or navigate friendships with the maturity of an adult. We understood that childhood unfolds in stages because experience itself is part of the curriculum.

This year, Nolan turned 20. Lilia turned 18. Instead of talking about first words or learning to ride a bike, we're talking about college, careers, relationships, finances, and what it means to build a life of your own. Our youngest, Oliver, is still at home, but even he has long since moved beyond those early developmental milestones.

What's interesting is that somewhere along the way, I stopped thinking about developmental stages altogether. Then, a few years ago, I heard someone describe an 18-year-old as a one-year-old adult. The idea was simple. An 18-year-old has only been an adult for one year. A 19-year-old is a two-year-old adult. A 20-year-old is a three-year-old adult, and so on. At first, I just thought it was clever. Then my own children became adults.

A Different Way to Think About Adulthood

This year, Nolan became a three-year-old adult. Lilia became a one-year-old adult. Not long ago, I reminded Nolan that I've been an adult longer than he has been alive. In fact, I'm still older than my two adult children's ages combined. That wasn't my way of saying, "I know more than you." It was my way of reminding both of us that adulthood has stages just like childhood does.

Somewhere around a person's eighteenth birthday, our expectations often change much faster than reality does. Legally, someone becomes an adult, and it's surprisingly easy to expect them to think, reason, and navigate life with the perspective of someone who has been doing it for years. We forget that they're still in the earliest stages of adulthood.

Thinking of Nolan as a three-year-old adult and Lilia as a one-year-old adult hasn't lowered my expectations of them. If anything, it has made them healthier. I still expect kindness, integrity, responsibility, and effort. What I no longer expect is experience they haven't yet had the opportunity to accumulate. Some lessons can only be learned by living through them, and that's what they're doing. That simple shift in perspective changed the way I parent.

The Twenty-Five-Year-Old Thought Experiment

As was true for many of us, around the 4th of July this year, I found myself thinking about America's 250th anniversary. At first, 250 years sounded old. Then I remembered there are countries that have existed for well over a thousand years, and suddenly the United States didn't seem particularly old at all. Compared to much of the world, we're still relatively young.

As I thought about America's age, that idea about one-year-old adults came rushing back. Obviously, the lifespan of a country doesn't translate neatly into human years, but I couldn't help playing with the idea anyway. We already do something similar with animals. We talk about dog years because we understand that different species age differently. What if, instead of trying to compare years one-to-one, I simply thought of every decade in a country's history as one year of adulthood? By that measure, America at 250 years old would be roughly the equivalent of a twenty-five-year-old person. You can certainly disagree with the conversion. The math isn't really the point. The perspective is.

To a human being, 250 years sounds ancient because it spans generations. To a country, though, 250 years suddenly feels much younger. Instead of imagining a nation near the end of its story, I found myself imagining one that may still be closer to the beginning than the end. At least, I hope that's true.

That shift in perspective changed the questions I found myself asking. What do I expect from a healthy twenty-five-year-old who isn't even at their halfway point in their lifespan? I don't expect someone who has everything figured out. I expect someone who has already accomplished a great deal while still having an enormous amount left to learn. I expect someone who has discovered strengths they should be proud of while continuing to grow in areas where they lack experience. I expect someone who has already overcome challenges they once thought impossible and who will almost certainly face challenges they aren't expecting.

I also expect accountability. Not because I expect perfection, but because I expect growth. When a healthy twenty-five-year-old makes a mistake, I don't assume that's the end of the story. I hope they learn from it. I hope they make a better decision next time. Accountability isn't the opposite of growth. It's one of the ways growth happens.

The more I sat with that thought, the more I realized it had quietly changed the way I thought about America. There are countless things about living in the United States that fill me with gratitude. There are also things I hope we continue improving. Those ideas don't compete with one another any more than they do when I think about my own children. I don't want less for Nolan and Lilia because I love them. I want more for them. I want them to keep learning, keep growing, and keep becoming the people they're capable of becoming. Maybe that's the best way I can describe how I feel about my country, too.

Better Questions

As I thought about all of this, I realized the biggest change hadn't been in the way I viewed my children or even my country. It was in the questions I was asking.

When Nolan or Lilia make a mistake, my first thought usually isn't, "Why don't they know better?" More often, I wonder what they're learning from it. Are they growing? Will they approach the situation differently the next time? Those questions don't excuse poor decisions, but they do recognize that development doesn't stop on a person's eighteenth birthday.

That made me wonder when I had stopped thinking that way. When my children were little, I was constantly trying to understand what was developmentally appropriate. I wanted to know what to expect from a toddler, a preschooler, or an elementary-aged child because those expectations shaped how I responded. Somewhere along the way, I stopped looking at adulthood through the same lens. I began treating adulthood as though it were a finish line rather than another stage of development.

That shift in thinking has changed more than the way I parent. It has changed the way I think about my country. If I picture America as a healthy twenty-five-year-old, I don't expect perfection. I expect continued growth. I expect accountability. I expect learning. I expect setbacks that lead to better decisions the next time around. Most of all, I expect there to be more story ahead than behind.

Maybe that's the real value of the thought experiment. It doesn't change America's age. It changes my expectations. And sometimes, changing our expectations changes everything.

~Heather

P.S. You know what else hit the 250 mark this year? My Lyon's Letters posts! This Letter is my 250th! Therefore, my Catch of the Week this week is gratitude.

Thank you for reading, sharing, and thinking alongside me over these past 250 posts. I hope, somewhere along the way, a letter made you pause, smile, reconsider something, or start a conversation with someone else. That is what has made writing these posts so meaningful.

As I begin the next 250, I would love to hear from you. Is there a post that has stayed with you over the years? Was there one you shared with someone else? Is there a topic you would like me to explore in a future letter?

Thank you for being part of the journey. Here's to the next 250.

P.P.S. Please remember to...

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