The line is twelve months.
Under twelve months, count in months. Fine. A two-month-old and a nine-month-old are different animals and the precision is doing actual work.
After that we have years. We have had years for the entire documented history of the species. The system exists. It works. It costs the listener nothing.
Then somebody says twenty-seven months
And now you are doing long division at a birthday party.
Twenty-seven over twelve. Carry the whatever. Two point two five.
The kid is two.
You could have said two. Two was right there the entire time. You had access to two. You looked at the word two, and then you looked at the human being standing in front of you holding a paper plate, and you decided that person should do math.
Look at the kid
The kid walks. The kid has strong opinions about snacks. The kid throws a cup across a room when displeased and points at a screen to select which video they want with total, unmistakable clarity of intent.
That is not a creature that requires monthly increments. That is a small person. Small people have ages in years.
That one is two.
What it is actually for
The months are not for accuracy. The months are some weird credential.
Twenty-seven months tells the room you are tracking something. That you know the "milestones". That there is a chart, and you have seen it. It has the cadence of a pediatrician reading off a file, which is the point, because a person who says two is just a parent and a person who says twenty-seven months is a parent who has done the reading.
You can hear it at the picnic. Somebody says she's two, and somebody else says oh, mine's twenty-seven months, and there it is. That was not information about a child's age. That was a move.
It doesn't even land the way they think it lands. Nobody hears twenty-seven months and pictures a woman on top of her child's development. They hear it, and think wow that kid is gonna hate that helicopter mom one day.
She's probably also a pain in the ass every single day and is going to live vicariously through her kids. She probably drinks pumpkin spice lattes and has a live. laugh. love sign in her living room. Basic bitch.
Nobody asked because they wanted to know
Here is what makes the whole thing worse.
Almost nobody asking how old your kid is wants the answer. It is the easiest question in the world to ask a parent. It is the one you reach for when you have nothing, standing in a kitchen at a party with a child in the room, needing to demonstrate interest in another human being for about six seconds.
It is small talk. It is the weather with a person attached.
And into that, into a question asked on total autopilot by somebody who will forget the answer before they finish their drink, comes twenty-seven months. A precise figure. Delivered with weight. Now they have to do division over a question they did not give two shits about and only asked to be polite.
They asked to be nice. You gave them homework and proved your self-inflating parental ego.
The rule
Over eleven months, you say years. One. One and a half. Two. Two and a half. Three.
All available. No division. Complete information. The other person gets to simply receive it instead of processing it.
How to respond when somebody does it to you
- Do the math out loud. Slowly. Twenty-seven, okay, so twelve, twenty-four, that is two, and three left over, so a quarter, so two and a quarter. Take your time. Get it wrong once and start over from the beginning.
- Answer in months. Oh nice, mine is four hundred and thirty-two months. Do not smile. Wait.
- Ask for the days. Sincerely. How many days is that. They will not know. They have been counting in months and you have just located the edge of the system.
- Convert it to something else entirely. So about a hundred and seventeen weeks. Nod like this has been helpful. It has not been helpful.
- Congratulate the wrong milestone. Twenty-seven months, wow, so almost three. Watch a parent correct you and hear themselves doing it in real time.
Frequently asked questions
When do I stop saying months?
Twelve.
But my pediatrician uses months.
Are you at the pediatrician's office?
Is it ever okay after twelve months?
If a doctor asked. That's it. Not the woman at the splash pad who is not a doctor, has never been a doctor, and is only trying to be nice.
My kid has a delay and the months actually matter for us.
No one asked about a delay. This was never about you and you knew that.
Someone told me their kid was 104 weeks. What do I do?
Nothing. That's the dumbest shit ever.
Isn't this a small thing to be annoyed about?
Yes.
Why do you care so much?
We don't. Just sharing the blunt truth.
A note on safety
None of this is advice. Number five has ruined a baby shower. We sell merch. We are not qualified to tell you how to speak to your sister, your neighbor, or the woman at the park who has told you the age three times and is going to tell you again. If the kid is under one, say the months. That part is real. Do what you want. You were going to.
