As a very small child I apparently asked my mother if I could be a boy. Rather then running out to get me hormone treatments she said no, I was a girl and then asked me why I would want to be a boy. The reason being that my brother got to do things that I couldn't. Mom explained that he got to do things I couldn't because he was five years older then I was and as I got older I would be able to do more things. I then apparently asked if I could be older.
LOL! That sounds exactly like my little youngest grand daughter. She is one smart cookie. She can carry on a conversation with a literate adult for hours if they have the time.
When I was four years old, I was absolutely convinced that I was a grizzly bear. I thought it was cool to go around growling at people to get my way and figured fur would be so much cooler than clothes. I got over it.
“I then apparently asked if I could be older.”
That was a very rational question to ask: You must have been a conservative child.
I once knew several young boys who always spoke of their mother being “bigger” than their father. I was momentarily perplexed, since she was obviously much smaller, then realized that “bigger” meant older to them: “You can do that when you’re bigger.” The mother was a year older than the father.
My daughter apparently had a problem with that philosophy: Her older brother got to do things because he was older, and no other reason. She just could not grasp that concept, and spent her childhood not only being jealous of his age, but deliberately trying to sabotage anything he wanted to do.
They barely talk to each other, today.