Milestones.

You know what?

Fuck milestones.

Yeah, I said it: Fuck milestones.

Seriously, don’t people have anything better to talk about than when their kid held up their head, rolled, walked, whatever? WHO in the hell cares?

I mean sure, it is beautiful and wonderful to celebrate our children achieving things. Three cheers that little Jimmy took a couple steps. Absolutely! I’ll toast to that. This sort of celebration of the little things is great–although we can take it all a little far as evidenced by the college-scale celebration of “graduation” from just about every grade these days–but I digress.

What I am talking about is the incessant measuring, comparing, racing our children one against the other. It makes me dizzy–and vaguely nauseous. I mean, I still get the baby center or some such nonsense updates on what my child “should” be doing at 2 years and 2 weeks and 1 day and 11 minutes and 56 second old. Now these updates make me giggle. And for awhile they gave me hope as I searched for things my daughter COULD do (like smiling–she was a total overachiever in that department BTW). But as I saw less and less and, eventually, none of my child’s skills on their lists, the updates made me cry…and while I signed up for the torture, it is all too easy to stumble on…online, in books, among other parents….

As the mother of a child who has not hit or exceeded an age appropriate milestone SINCE smiling, admittedly I may be a little bit touchy about this stuff. But I’ll bet it isn’t for the reasons you think. I am not offended that your little ironman walked at 10 months. I’m happy for him…and slightly frightened for you. I think it is adorable to hear your 12 month old speak in her little tiny voice, demanding “more more MORE!”

I’m not going to lie–there are times when these things make me a little sad, or afraid, or uncertain. But I am excited for these kids. AS I am excited for the quiet child who waits for her first words months or years beyond her peers. Or the kiddo who is happy to scoot on his butt while his friends run.

All our children are miraculous.

And in a culture of incessant timing, measuring, evaluating we (inadvertently?) place a higher value on the early, fast, the big, the loud–and diminish the dreamy, deliberate, tiny, reserved. Both these extremes, and everything in between, are important and necessary…and should be nurtured.

Now, it may be the result of having watched every inch of my child’s body being measured, evaluated and analyzed, but, meanwhile, it seems that in trying to figure out whether a child will exceed milestones or not, we forget to just let them be who they are. Watch them, hear them…let them teach us a little bit. And if they are a little behind their peers in one thing or another…it will be ok. Really. I don’t have much of a choice with my child, because if I tracked such things I would be a blubbering mess…but it is as true for Ezzy as for any other child: They need to just be allowed to be who they are.