My smallest child races off to kindergarten each day and my largest child will soon make me a grandmother. That's what I mean by spanning decades. He was twenty when she was born and I have four in between. So I should be a well-seasoned and wise mother to this little five-year-old but what I am finding is that, because of my advanced age, I have forgotten most of what I learned along the way. Or that, because my children are all individuals, the lessons I do remember don't apply all the time.
So she runs circles around me. But she and I have something very special in common. I became an aunt at age five, too. And the only thing I like better than being an aunt, is being a mom.