Am I having an early mid-mothering crisis?

Bryony Gordon:

I know that five is not a huge age, that compared to, say, 37, it’s barely a blip on the radar. But to me, five is a big deal. And my daughter’s fifth birthday is causing me almost the same amount of distress as my 30th did, when I had a bit of a breakdown because, instead of a boyfriend, I seemed to have a drug problem and a huge amount of debt.

Of course, the distress now is slightly different. I no longer have a drug problem and, with the help of my sensible husband, I have managed to whittle my huge debt down to a small one. But I can’t help but feel panic at Edie’s impending leap from four to five.

I know that it’s a good thing that she is getting older, but must she do it so quickly? I swear it was only yesterday that she was crawling around and only eating mashed banana. Now she talks to me like she’s my mother (I don’t know where she gets this from) and has developed a taste for chorizo.

I can already see her becoming annoyed and embarrassed by me. ‘Mummy, why do you need to run in your knickers?’ she said to me before the Marathon.

Now she talks to me like she’s my mother and has developed a taste for chorizo

In an attempt to prolong her childhood, I seem to be regressing. I decide that we are going to Legoland – more a treat for me than it is for her, given that she currently has no interest in Lego and sees it as a ‘boy’s’ toy (must remember to give her a lecture about gender fluidity soon).

I book us into the Lego hotel, which is like being in a pimped-up Premier Inn – everything is made of Lego, and I’m in heaven.

‘We never had things like this when we were children,’ I hear myself actually saying at one point. I climb on everything. I jump up and down in the queue for the mini rollercoaster. Edie gives me a withering look that says, ‘Simmer down, lady.’

Am I having an early mid-mothering crisis? And whatever am I going to do when – gasp! – she turns 15? I resolve to book us tickets for Chessington World of Adventures, and not think about it now.

How to listen to Bryony Gordon’s Mad World podcast

Jane Gordon:

There are just three more sleeps before my granddaughter Edie’s fifth birthday and all the talk tonight is about age. We are following our usual routine when I am staying over, which involves her sleeping with me in the big double bed in the spare room and my reading her six stories at bedtime (hers at 7pm, that is, not mine a couple of hours later).

Halfway through the third book it becomes obvious that she is not listening. In fact she has decided, since she is almost five, it’s time she read to me.

‘Shhh! Annie!’ she says. ‘It’s my turn.’ And she did read – in that phonetic way they teach now, which involves them laboriously sounding out every single letter before they work out every single word.

Half an hour later, by the end of Pip and Posy: The Little Puddle (her favourite book because Pip wets his knickers), I was asleep. ‘Wake up Annie!’ she commands. ‘I am reading you another story.’ I look at the book in her hand and inwardly groan.

‘Actually Edie, I think it’s time for me to go downstairs now. But I will be coming to bed very soon because I am very tired,’ I say, as I attempt my exit.

She is puzzled. To her admitting to ever being tired is a bit like me ever admitting to being old

‘Are you tired because you are old, Annie?’ Edie asks, genuinely puzzled, because to her admitting to ever being tired is a little like me ever admitting to being old. But on this occasion, anxious to get downstairs for supper, I find myself agreeing with my granddaughter.

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘As you grow older you get more tired.’

‘Will I be more tired when I am five?’ Edie asks me before launching into a string of other questions about the subject that most fascinates and mystifies her at the moment: how is it possible to be four-years-old tonight and wake up in three sleep’s time and be five-years-old?

As usual I struggle to give her sensible answers to these questions. Not just because ageing is a subject I am in denial about, but also because it doesn’t seem possible to me that this little person will soon be five.

The most magical age, don’t you think, of childhood? 

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More from Stella Magazine 26 April 2018