2 hours ago
6
ARTICLE AD BOX
One minute, I'm holding a new grandson, and the next - timewise - I'm closer to needing a shower mat than a mat upon which to do some morning push-ups.
By HERB KEINON FEBRUARY 1, 2025 22:11To paraphrase that 1982 disco hit by the Weather Girls:
It’s raining babies! Hallelujah!
It’s raining babies! Amen.
And indeed, it is. A month and a half after The Youngest’s wife gave birth to their first daughter, Skippy’s wife gave birth to their fourth boy. Which means in the Skipster’s home, they are singing this version of the Weather Girls’ song:
It’s raining boys! Hallelujah!
It’s raining boys! Amen.
This mini-baby boom has given me plenty of opportunities over the last few weeks to stare into the faces of infants. That is something, obviously, that triggers thoughts about time: how it flies, where it goes, how to appreciate it. It has also made me wonder: Do infants have any concept of time, and when does age and time consciousness begin?
A quick Internet search revealed the following:
As early as four months old, babies can begin recognizing the order of events – such as knowing that food follows the bib.
Stay updated with the latest news!
Subscribe to The Jerusalem Post Newsletter
Between 18 and 24 months, toddlers start grasping simple concepts such as “tomorrow,” though “yesterday” may be more challenging.
At three years old, children begin to show properties of time perception similar to that of adults.
By age eight, children’s time sensitivity is almost identical to that of their parents.
The reason staring at babies stirs up ruminations about time is simple: When the grandchildren start piling up, you begin to feel a bit old. Skippy now has as many kids as I do – a telltale sign of aging if ever there was one.
Feeling old
BUT IT wasn’t really the grandkids that made me feel old this week. Rather, it was a visit to my health fund for an annual blood test.
“Do you mind if I ask you some questions?” the nurse said, after seeing my birth date.
“No,” I replied, confident of my robust health. “Shoot.”
And as soon as I said “shoot,” I had second thoughts. I’m old enough to know that when people ask if they can ask a question, you’re usually in for a shellacking. Otherwise, they just ask the question. Notice that nobody at the dinner table ever says, “Can I ask you a question? Would you pass the ketchup?”
Once, after I had given a lecture, a woman approached me and did the whole “Can I ask you a question?” routine. I thought she was going to ask something related to what I had talked about – Iran or perhaps the US-Israel relationship. Instead, she asked, “Do you have a neurological disorder? Why do you move around so much when you talk?” I just smiled, though what I wanted to say was: “I don’t have a neurological problem, lady, but you seem to have a personality one. Who asks something like that?”
Another time, after delivering a lecture in rural Kentucky, two women approached with the same line: “Can we ask you a question?” they asked kindly.
“Sure,” I said. “Shoot.”
Pointing to my kippah, one asked, “How do you keep that thing on your head? Is that a dumb question?”
“No,” I replied. “It’s actually a good one because it’s one of the few for which I have a definitive answer.”
So I should have known better than to let the nurse ask her questions.
And they were doozies.
“Are you independent?” she asked.
“Can you walk up steps?” she continued. “Can you shower alone?”
Then she had some life tips: “You should get a mat for the shower, a bar to hold on to when you get in and out, and always take it slow when getting out of bed.”
Now I know that the nurse meant well and that these are questions she has to ask those entering their senior years, but hello! I’m 65, not 95.
A mat in the shower? My grandma had a mat in the shower. And a bar to hold on to? I’m not there yet. Or am I?
EVER SINCE I was four months old, I’ve been fascinated by time – but in a way that drives The Wife nuts. I’m fascinated by the relativity of time, not in an Einsteinian sense but in the sense of how what seems near today once seemed so far away.
“Honey,” I said one morning, stumbling upon a revelation I was just bursting to share, “do you realize that I started university 48 years ago?”
“Didn’t ever really think about it, dear,” she said, patiently.
“But think about it,” I insisted. “When I started college in 1977, someone who had started 48 years earlier would have entered in 1929, the year of the Great Depression.”
“So what?” she said. “What’s the point?”
“The point is that if you had asked me in 1977 about the Great Depression, I would have thought of it as distant history. But that’s the way kids now must be thinking about 1977.”
Those kinds of time comparisons always intrigue me. When The Wife turned 60, for instance, I quickly pointed out she was closer to 80 than to 40.
Music offers yet another way to reflect on the relativity of time.
A Bob Dylan fan
Like many of my generation, my musical tastes were cemented in the 1960s and 70s. A big Bob Dylan fan, I can listen over and over again to The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, an album that came out in 1963 – that is 62 years ago.
“Honey,” I said to The Wife, approaching her with yet another epiphany, “do you realize that us listening to music from the ‘60s today is like when we were teenagers in the ‘70s listening to music from the 1910s – songs like ‘It’s a Long Way to Tipperary’ and Al Jolson’s ‘Swanee.’”
“Jeepers,” she humored me, very 1910s-like.
And so does time unfold in mind-bending ways. One minute, I’m holding a new grandson, wondering when he’ll become aware of time, and the next, I’m realizing that – timewise – I’m much closer now to needing a shower mat than a mat upon which to do some morning push-ups.
English (US) ·