Question: When Do Kids Start to Rush?

And I don't mean in the collegiate sense.

I mean, at what point do children develop a sense of urgency about time?

Because in spite of their frequently neurotic and fussy parents, my children seem relatively unphased by the passing of time. They go about their business on school day mornings as if they have three hours to get ready, and then just mosey into school when they're done counting the stairs, or writing each other notes and exchanging stuffed animals.

I love that they aren't hung up on time. And I hate that we are. I know for myself, being late is truly a nightmare event. Which is completely stupid, because in most cases, it just doesn't matter. Could it be that I am trying to learn to think about time the way my kids do, or rather, don't?

Because someone wise once told me that someone else wise once said, "The only things that must be rushed are birth and death." It might have been Lao-Tzu. Or Winnie-the-Pooh. I forget.

In the Inuit culture of Northern Canada, school starts whenever the students wake up and decide to show up. White (a.k.a. Southern) teachers would have a time of it, trying to start class on time with people who don't see time the same way. In the Inuit culture, you sleep when you're tired, you wake when you wake, and if you feel like going to school, great. If not, there's something else to do. Hunt, eat, hang out at the pool hall, go snowmobiling.

I admire my children's Inuit-like sense of time. I wonder if they could teach it to me.