Y is for Youth...

I murmured to Darling Daughter, "Youth is wasted on the young," as we watched a little girl run back and forth in front of the bleachers at Hubby's game last Friday. The little bitty's LOVING parents were telling her to run to the end of the rink and back so they could time her. She would happily race off in what was surely her best sprint, and DD and I would see her LOVING parents giggle and shake their heads at her...THEY TOTALLY WEREN'T EVEN TIMING HER! buttheads...yeah...I said it!


Nevertheless, MY darling daughter told me in that lovely teen-agery, I-am-smarter-than-you-and-you're-just-dumb tone of voice, "J-Me, that like makes like no sense at all."


Me: "What? 'Youth is wasted on the young'? It is an old saying...I didn't make it up, but it makes sense if you think about it."


DD: "No, it totally doesn't make any sense at all."


I let it go because I don't wage wars with teens (JUST PISS POOR CUSTOMER SERVICE LIKE DAVID'S BRIDAL!). Anywho...I couldn't think of a Y is for ...I kept coming back to Youth and Young. So here it is Darling Daughter....the research for "Youth is wasted on the young."


George Bernard Shaw penned this little ditty, and he meant that young people waste their time being young doing senseless or "youthful" things that have almost no value or use. The mature people who have useful ideas and such wasted their youth and have little time or energy to make their ideas useful (paraphrase of the answers.com answer).


I wish I knew how to speak French because this would be a fun one to learn: "A 16th century Frenchman, Henri Estienne, had much the same idea and said 'Si jeunesse savoit; si vieillesse pouvoit' (roughly: 'If only youth had the knowledge; if old age had the strength') which is a well-known saying in France" (Source).


SCHOOLED YA!