I graduated in 1987 and made it to my 10-year  but not my 20-year high school reunion so it’s been fun to check out everyone’s family photos on Facebook. The most hilarious photos, though, are the 80s big hair shots that people have started scanning and posting (God help us all if my friends start scanning college pics). There’s a definite aura of Aquanet and Def Leppard about these 80s high school pictures. I don’t care if you were the preppy collar up bowhead Muffy or the head bangin’ black concert t-shirt rocker or the pseudo punk Madonna wanna be laden down with 50 bangles on each wrist, twenty years later we all look like extras in a John Hughes film.

Me and hubby, prom 1987. Our theme was apparently baby blue, which is very attractive in eyeshadow.

Several of my classmates started their families in their 20s so their children are now teenagers. One friend’s daughter just got married, which is really crazy to me, but she and her husband got married right out of high school.

At 39 I’m one of the older, OK if not oldest, moms in Miss A’s daycare class. I don’t really consider myself an “older” mom, I mean it’s not like I’m drinking Ensure or sweatin’ to the oldies (I’m taking hip hop!), but compared to a mom my age who started their family in their early 20s instead of nearly 33 then there is a world of difference. I’m knee deep into soccer, dance lessons, and first grade birthday parties. They’re knee deep into prom, high school graduation, and college applications.

One of my high school friends has teenagers and she recently wrote me and said that she couldn’t imagine having young children. “You’re definitely in a different stage,” she wrote.

I noticed she didn’t choose a word like “fun” or “charming” or “adorable.”