The hardest part about being the child of teenage parents, however academically accomplished and brilliantly talented they may have become as adults, is watching them age in front of you.
Most kids come along and their parents have already been made crazy by a life full of pressures and involvements (and baggage). But I had the unique pleasure of watching my parents become the simpering, schizophrenic, and cheerless adults all of my friends' parents were. Maybe that's harsh; my parents are neither schizophrenic nor cheerless. But today, at my siblings' Kwanzaa pageant, I watched, as if in slow motion, my Dad applaud at a hilarious(ly adorable) skit in which my sister played a Yoruba goddess out to teach two young farmers a life lesson. The expression on his face wasn't just happiness; there was something else. Like bewilderment or astonishment. And as heartwarming as it was, this was not the skit for that. His look seemed to say "how did I get here?"
Funny thing is, I know. What a strange position to be in.
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