bluephone's Journal: No one is ever 'grown up'...

Today, after watching Kordell Stewart and the new but fantastic kicker Jeff Reed (6 for 6 FGs, 1 ExtraPoint, 19 total), I grabbed a Coke and started to read my sunday paper. Yep, there are some of us that still prefer a printed newspaper. I came across an article by a former Allegheny County commissioner, Bob Cranmer. It was titled Dad, I'm pregnant': One family's story.

Reading it, I realized I was reacting in a way I'd never reacted before. I reacted from the father's perspective. I imagined myself in the same situation, a 16 year old daughter coming home and saying those words, "I'm Pregnant". It was disconcerting to both be in that situation, and also to realize that being in that situation isn't as far fetched anymore as it once was.

For a long time, when you're young and dating, and doing the thing no parent thinks their kids are doing, and the deed we never admitted to our parents when it was happening, your worry is about being the person that would become the mother or father. And how you're too young for that to happen, and you realize it would really throw your life off course. Then, time passes you by while you're not looking, and suddenly, your friends are getting married, folks you went to high school with already have kids, and you're no longer too young. And your perspective has changed. You realize you identify with the other viewpoint now. You understand so many things your parents told you when you were young (not all of them, because, after all, we're all smarter than our parents were ;).

And also we realize more than ever, when we were young, how stupid we really were in so many places we thought we were so smart. And we realize as every year passes how little we really know, and how much we still need to learn. And of course, just when you think you have got the rules memorized, the game is over.

Wow, maturity is a real downer...