Age 3 Is Actually the Best Age
Parents of young children often say that the Terrible Twos have nothing at the age of three. When they turn three, we start calling them “C grade”, which indicates their increasingly dissatisfied nature. But the word is nowhere near strong enough to describe what it feels like to have a three-year-old in your house every day. They cannot communicate as well as they would like, and it pisses them off. They are constantly trying to do shit that could kill them, and you stop them from dying, and it really pisses them off.
But I’m not here to tell you how ridiculously difficult three-year-olds are. If you have one parent, you already know (and if you don’t have one, you still think I’m exaggerating). Instead, I am here to tell you that three years old is not the worst age; it’s actually the best. And now I will defend this position.
They are growing and developing so much this year
In the year between the third and fourth birthdays, children learn and grow up TONS. Suddenly there are hundreds of words in their vocabulary (instead of dozens), they speak in short sentences and answer simple questions. They start naming colors, they know the difference between morning, afternoon and night, they can even count a little. They start helping dress up, ride a tricycle, kick, throw and catch the ball. They can climb stairs with alternating legs!
Honestly, the list of milestones in development is impressive, and with such a growth, it should come as no surprise that from time to time they have a small chip on their shoulder. You would, too, if your brain was constantly learning new words and mastering new motor skills every day. Being three is exhausting.
Trainers prepare you for any other age
Every age has its ups and downs, moments of reward and challenges. But none of them are like the age of three, which exists to prepare you – and strengthen your patience – for all subsequent ages. Of course, now that they are older, they are legally talking to you, or they are not doing their homework, or their eyes are constantly glued to their smartphone screen. But really, that’s nothing compared to (many) times when you had to haul them out of a friend’s restaurant / store / house like a soccer ball as they screamed and thrashed for some illogical reason.
If you’ve successfully survived three years of normal screaming and parental breakdowns, you’re ready to tackle whatever parenting can bring.
This is the year that you will ultimately yearn for.
At the risk of sounding like an old lady in a grocery store whose mission is to advise young parents to “cherish” their youngest years because they are “growing too fast” – always ignoring the disheveled or haggard looks of their parents – I will go and say it … One day you will yearn until the age of three.
Three years is the last year when they seem really small. By the time they turn four, with their fully formed sentences, slightly more pristine reasoning abilities, and early childhood education classes, they’ve lost so much of their childhood qualities. As you move away from the tantrums and begin to forget how difficult it was to go somewhere or do something in time, you are left with pictures of them looking so small and precious, and videos of all their adorable mispronouncements. …
And although it seemed impossible at the time, you wish that one more time, you could experience how happy they were to “help” you fold the towels. Or how they wanted you to carry them everywhere, even though they could walk. Or they tried so hard to button their own jacket.
One day it will seem that they have grown too quickly.