Now We Are Six

[undyingking]

I just realized something that seems a little strange: I never think of, or describe, children as being 'about 6'. Show me a child of unknown vintage, and I'll usually guess them at the right age plus or minus a year or so. But for some mysterious reason, my mental child-size/maturity map goes straight from 'about 5' to 'about 7'. I don't have any similar lacuna on any other part of the age range. It's as though I have a mental block of some sort about being 6 -- or, at least, about other people being 6.

The year my little sister was 6 we had a great drought and a plague of ladybirds¹ -- perhaps that was traumatic in some way. I can't remember much about the year I myself was 6, but I remember hardly anything of my early years.

Does this all just sound like so much bibble, or does it strike a curious chord in anyone?

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1 Actually, there was a traumatic incident connected with the ladybirds, now I think about it.

Comments

[mr-malk.livejournal.com]

Hmm... I have to part company with you there. I'd say that that 6 and 7 give a similar impression of precision to me!

(Oddly, I could see 7.5 as *less* precise, because it is a nice, neat three-quarters... but that may might just be me).