once an adult and twice a child

Mrs. Collins was nearly ninety years old. Her life fittingly illustrates the old proverb “Once an adult and twice a child.” For a number of years she had been indisposed in mind as well as in body and required almost as much care as a child.

1909 January 22, “Found Dead in Chair. Mrs. Bettie Collins Passed Away Sunday.”, in O. F. Lawrence, editor, The Grenada Sentinel, volume LV, number 27, Grenada, Miss., page [5], column 4

My Flossie and I had the Santa Claus tables turned on us Christmas Eve, or maybe it is that old adage, “Once an adult and twice a child’ that came true. Anyway we sat up real late Christmas eve so we would be sure Jim Watie and his sister Andrea were asleep when old Santa came to the house . . . we made it or thought that we did but next morning when we got up instead of there being 3 stockings, Jim’s, Andy’s and Allyn’s hanging at the fire place there were five. Those two imps had filled a couple of stockings with our names on them and hung them up along the side of theirs. It was a lot of fun, made especially so because it was my Flossie’s and my first Christmas as grandpa and grandma.

1954 December 31, Wheeler Mayo, “What’s Cookin’ in the Cooksons”, in Sequoyah County Times, volume 62, number 32, Sallisaw, Okla., page 3, column 3

It amazes me that some people find nursing or caring for someone as something no one should do, and it always shocks me to realize that their reaction is so negative. It is as though no one knows how to change diapers on an adult, nor wants to, as though it is something to be ashamed of. Once when I was asked “How can you do this?![”] I replied with a terse “Once an adult and twice a child”. We may have to go through this ourselves one day. It needs to be done.

2013 September 16, Edwina Marino, “Bathing”, in Alzheimer’s Through Tears and Laughter: Diary of a Caregiver, Bloomington, Ind.: AuthorHouse, →ISBN, page 34