Give Me Five

November 13, 2025

I don’t really remember being a 5-year-old.  The earliest image I have stuck in my brain is getting up from a nap and my family had a new dog.  I was probably only a 4-year-old at that point. I also have images of things that happened when I was 5, in kindergarten.  That’s about the extent of it.  Of course, that was almost 60 years ago.  I guess I can be forgiven for lacking those memories, of which I am certain there were many formative moments.

Having had kids of my own, I have been privileged to watch them grow up to adulthood. For me, their early years were truly inspiring.  Children are always amazing, but the most wonderful time, in my opinion, is when they are between 3 and 7 years old. What a magnificent timeframe in a child’s life this is!  When they get a little older, around 8 or 9, they learn that you, as parents, aren’t the center of the world nor the best thing that ever happened to them. Nature, with a little help from society, helps them develop a mind of their own, and they start to use it.  Your influence on them becomes less and less each year after that.  But those early years are what you remember.  Today, I am pondering how fortunate I am to get to see this again.

On November 1^st, 2025, my grandson Emeric turned 5 years old. He is right in the middle of those marvelous years. I am blessed to have him around a great deal, so I get to see him in all his glory.  He is bursting with uninhibited imagination and creativity.  Mastering our language and soaking up knowledge, he is a veritable sponge and generally, a joy to be around.  Humanity hasn’t gotten to him yet. It won’t be long before society, the internet, television, teachers and even his friends begin to rob him of most of his curiosity and inventiveness.  In many ways, stifling his imagination.  Putting a cap on his intellectual curiosity.  It is just the way it is. They will have him coloring inside the lines in no time.

Now don’t get me wrong, I agree that kids need to grow up and learn. Rules are essential.  Manners are extremely important.  Teaching kids to bounce back from adversity and encouraging problem-solving skills teaches resilience. Playing and working with other kids helps them learn to understand their feelings and develop coping skills. It also can encourage them to work hard and develop humility and gratitude, building their self-esteem and self-respect.

I am a product of public education and have watched it make something from nothing lots of times. Mostly out of me.  But one thing I contend is, our world doesn’t allow people to be different, to think differently, to dream.  Conformity is often king.  And that is where I have my issues.  It may not be intentional, but it is a fact.

Right now, my grandson has a blissful naivety about the world, as he is learning how it works. There are no boundaries to where his mind can go.  He has few inhibitions, and his creativity is limited only by his current level of development.  There are no fences, other than those his family have established as behavioral limits, like teaching him what is right and wrong. Or the self-control not to scream in the house when he gets excited! Otherwise, the sky is the limit. He is also extremely cute and loveable!  Which also tends to wane with time. Much to a grandfather’s chagrin.  

On one hand he says funny things like using the word “Yiddle” for little.  Very cute and childlike, begetting his innocence.  Yet he can also expound on complex concepts like where your food goes after it’s eaten. He can describe this process all the way from your mouth to the toilet. The other day he told me about our solar system and where comets come from. And on both accounts, he was almost completely correct.  I have to give his mom most of the credit for this level of intellectual development.

Still, he is just a child that has a significant amount of knowledge for his age.  Civilization generally values that in a person.  It’s the creativity and curiosity that society is after. The willingness to ask challenging questions.  To push the limits on simplicity. Here are a few recent examples of this:

Grandpa...

-      How long is your soon?

-      Why is soon always pretty?

-      What does “in a minute” mean?

-      How come its always time to go and its never time to stay?

-      Does “almost” mean not?

-      Is life real?

-      Where do my thoughts come from?

-      Where does the sky end and space start?

-      Why do farmers grow corn, why not just buy it at Meijer?

-      Can ears of corn hear?

-      How do trees come back to life in the spring?

-      Who decides what being a good boy is?

-      How come it’s called a building? It’s already built.

And these are just examples from the last month or so.  He is so full of questions and there are just no limits.  Yet!  And that is the point.  Limits haven’t been set yet. He sees the world with complete clarity. As I said, at this stage, he has almost no hang-ups or inhibitions.

We take walks in the woods, and he notices everything.  Every bush and tree have personalities. 

They become part of the narrative of our walk. We will be playing a game is making up as we go.  There are usually witches or wizards, sometimes dragons or other monsters he invents as we walk, dodging fantasy lava pools and imaginary quicksand. I play along with his vision, repeating the dialog he gives me as he directs the story.  Exercising my rusty imagination in the process.

His knowledge still comes through. He can identify almost every bird he sees and most of them that he hears. He tries to distinguish each bug we encounter as we flip over rocks and dead branches, trying to discover something new.  We catch a snake, and he asks 100 questions, and provides me with just as many theories.  Absorbing everything to tell his mother and grandmother later.  That is the curiosity that growing up often robs us of.  I hope it doesn’t for him. 

Of course, we live in a modern world, so electronic devices are essential. His mother tries to make this a learning experience for him.  He plays games on his iPad where he builds things or makes recipes.  Regardless of what it is, he wants to share his creativity with me.  I never want that to go away.  Sometimes in today’s world being creative and an “out of the box” thinker is a stigma.  Well, let me tell you, it was one of the key ingredients in my recipe for success in life. 

I hope he has some memories of this time when he is a 62-year-old man, like his grandpa.  Of a time before he had to follow the rules that we all must follow.  I hope these memories make him happy and smile.  Of course, I will be happier when he eats more than just breakfast cereal and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. But like everything else, that will come.  Until then, I shall remain one very proud and happy grandpa.