When we first moved into the West Windsor-Plainsboro community, we settled in a beautiful rental home following a snafu with our house under construction. I explored the neighborhood with Katie and Molly, then just six and three, and literally knocked on doors to meet people. I have always been outgoing, but I was particularly outgoing then. Our neighbors opened their doors to me, and after asking a few well-placed questions, I discovered that we were part of the influx of young families on a street that was undergoing a demographic turnover. Seems there were lots of empty nesters or soon-to-be empty nesters with older kids in college or high school. I remember thinking how old those people must be, and what a far-off distance into the future that would be for us.
Suddenly, that future is here, and I am now one of those “older” parents. Will’s arrival in 1999 means we won’t be empty-nesters for five more years, but nonetheless I find myself on the other side of a demographic I once saw as a distant horizon.
The year 2013 also marks a major milestone for my relationship with the WW-P News and this column. Way back in the summer of 2003, on a lark, I sent in an essay I had written about our transition to this community and how, though it was not San Francisco, it was a lovely place to live and raise children. Ten years ago I was what might be considered a rather young mom, since my oldest was still only 12 and the baby was not yet in kindergarten. How quickly a decade flies, and in the blink of an eye, Katie is a working girl, Molly is in college, and Will is on the brink of high school.
Scary to think about, but if Katie stays on my historical track, I could be a grandmother in eight years. I was no spring chicken when I had her at 30, but to think that I could be a Suburban Grandma in that short time is frightening indeed. And no, I don’t think I’ll be writing that column.
In fact, there are times when I wonder about my relevance to younger parents as the Suburban Mom. In the early years, I wrote about adventures with all three kids at home at their varying ages and challenges. Now, with only one baby bird still in the nest, I have wondered whether I should go more political with my words, or more international in scope. Certainly my days of writing about carpools and play dates are long over.
These past 10 years of growth in my family have been paralleled by growth in the community. I feel like an old-timer when I can say that we used to shop at Caldor in the Plainsboro Shopping Center. That shopping plaza has been undergoing growing pains ever since, with one identity change after another.
We old-timers can remember when the CVS was tiny and tucked away inside the mini-mall and not the huge stand-alone it is now. We can remember Easy Video at a time when most of us still had VCRs and rented movies. You could always count on running into a friend or two on a Friday night looking for a family movie. This was when the technology of today was but a twinkle in the eyes of the innovators, and few could imagine the convenience of downloading practically everything from the convenience of your own home.
A new year is a time of pause and reflection, a perfect opportunity to ponder the future. I used to believe in establishing a five-year plan, though nothing ever goes as planned or anticipated. Still, this time a five-year plan is very relevant to this family, because in five years, Will is going to be a college freshman and I really cannot see rattling around inside a big old house paying huge taxes and keeping up the maintenance. Katie and Molly were both home for the holidays, and it was wonderful to have all the space to celebrate and have friends over, but I can’t see keeping up with all the costs to have these few times of the year when everyone is together again.
The other thing that happens is that your friends start experiencing family milestones that remind you that time is moving quickly. Our good friends just celebrated the arrival of their first grandchild. We went to a wedding in the fall, the first one that involved the child of a friend, and in June, we will go to a second, friends that we met when all our kids were tiny and Will was not yet on the scene.
So one day, not really that far off, we will be that family with the sign out on the front lawn, the family the new young families point to as the old people with grown kids moved out to far-flung places of the world. Suddenly, it is more of a tangible reality than it has ever been before. I’m not ready, but I have five years to think about it and be prepared.
