Page 32 - MidWeek - Dec 14, 2022

32 MIDWEEK DECEMBER 14, 2022
There are all sorts of ways to self-deter- mine when you have become officially old. Body parts that creak when you get up in the middle of the night. Staircases that seem a lot steeper than they used to be.
PATERNITY WARD D. L. Stewart
When You’re Old Enough To Know You’re Old
wound up paying the check for any of the meals.
charge in the kitchen. (For the record, on Thanksgiving Day my wife was admitted to the kitchen solely in an advisory capacity while our daughters-in-law took con- trol and I was banned from my traditional role of fixing lumpy mashed potatoes and even lumpier gravy.)
the passenger’s seat instead of being behind the wheel; I was no longer in my family’s driver’s seat, both literally and metaphorically. So my youngest son drove home, playing god-awful music on Sirius.
For me, the possibility that I may
be approaching oldness became undeniable a few weeks ago when our family gathered for Thanksgiving week ... and I never wound up paying the check for any of the meals.
An uncontrollable urge to say things like, “You call THAT music?” Demanding to know, “Why is it so cold in here? TURN UP THE HEAT!” no matter how many sweaters you happen to be wearing at the time.
No matter how quickly I reached for the bill, one of my kids grabbed it first. At the end of a brunch, I reached out to give the serv- er my credit card, but I was out-reached by my youngest son’s much longer arms.
I suppose I should be thankful that my children are willing and able to take over the responsibilities that had been mine for all these years.
At a pricey steak house, I clearly informed the wait- er who took our orders that I wanted the dinner bill to come to me. Somehow, though, it wound up in the hands of another son.
ing parents and newly adult children.
reason for them not to pick up the checks.
Ceding the check bill-pay- ing role wasn’t the only change I noticed. When we left a restaurant and got to the car, I was relegated to
Now if I could only get them to turn up the heat.
For me, the possibility that I may be approaching oldness became undeniable a few weeks ago when our family gathered for Thanks- giving week ... and I never
Perhaps I should have been happy about that. For years, I had been part of the middle generation, stuck with the check both for ag-
But now the aging parents have aged out and the new- ly adult children are newly middle-agers with sufficient incomes. There’s no logical
Perhaps that’s a male pride thing, an admission that the father-son relationship had been irreversibly flipped. My gender’s equivalent to the stereotypical mother-daugh- ter question of who’s in
Although, to be honest, there was a certain satisfac- tion in being able to do that.
Still, it didn’t feel right.
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