Seventeen Years

Today is my oldest child's 17th birthday. It’s so wild when I think about it. I look back at baby photos, or the toddler years, or elementary school, or middle school. And now, I have this person who walks around my house, the size of a full-grown adult, but still a child in many ways. I always have to keep that in mind when interacting with them. Their prefrontal cortex is still developing. Life experiences are limited.

It’s such a marked passage of time to have a 17-year-old child. So close to the day when we might say “We have two children living at home, and one who is (at college, moved out, on their own).”

It’s become a tradition in our house to get donuts on someone’s birthday. The entire dozen donuts were in our kitchen and gone by 7:30 a.m. My newly minted 17-year-old went out for lunch with a friend, and is going out with a larger group of friends next weekend. As a family, we ordered Chinese food for dinner (at the request of the birthday person) and will have cake and presents.

I asked how it feels to be 17, and my teen admitted that it feels like an “in-between” year. 16 is such a big deal with the ability to get a driver’s license. And 18 is legal adulthood. 17 is kind of a blip between the two. Not that the birthday itself is any less momentous.

My husband frames it as the “last year of being a child.” From a legal perspective, that’s true. After this year, they will be considered an adult, even though they will always be my child.