How is it possible that my baby girl will be 25 years old tomorrow? I know you know this, but I just have to type it: THAT’S A QUARTER CENTURY! Is it possible I missed a science class in high school that taught us about the physics of parental aging – that we age at a significantly slower rate than that of our children? Please say it’s true.
In 2000, ISTS didn’t have a corporate website or access to the internet. Email was still new and exciting, functioning alongside its cousin – the dependable fax machine. By the time my daughter was five, we were just going digital and continued to receive thousands and thousands of scholarship applications in the mail. We were one of the post office’s most active clients in Nashville, TN.
When we bought portable phones and could walk several feet from the docking station, we all felt so technically advanced! I Googled it and the world population then was around 4.5billion – now we are at 8.2billion! By 2010, we had the first iPad and Mark Zuckerberg was Time magazine’s Person of the Year (and looked about 15). Some of us were waiting with bated breath for the next Harry Potter movie.
Ah, aging. Ok, I’m going to calm down and share a few additional personal reflections. I’ve gone from asking the kids who they were hanging out with (and then verifying) to asking them how their jobs are and what they think about this and that. I no longer worry about them driving home from a late party but instead, respond to them when I’m out after 10pm: “Mom, are you all home yet?” Instead of Santa, we took a family trip; and after years of family dinner every night, now we schedule the occasional dinner together with significant others (and eating in front of the TV is no longer a ‘no-no’).
Twenty-five years. Wow! As I think about the next quarter century, I’m excited to see what all my kids and co-workers will be doing. I’m also researching the passage of time, hoping to find that article on the physics of parental aging, because don’t the parents deserve that?
– Becky Sharpe, CEO
