In my thinking (thanks to a Bible college Teacher that drilled this into me), a mentor is a challenging relationship that makes you grow. Therefore, the children I work with could be mentors to me… friends, family, work colleagues etc. can all be mentors to me. Annoying people on the phone after ages on hold can be mentors to me. I have found that I am missing the kind of mentoring that only older adults can bring about – the type of relationship where you know they’ve been there done that, learned the lessons and are wiser for it. Now I do have older sisters and my Dad and Aunties & Uncles, but I think that living in Auckland has made it harder to have that weekly kind of mentor or role model to observe (given that my closest relative is 1 ½ away). I don’t know if it is going to be ‘a matter of time’ before I meet lots of parent/grandparent figures in the city as it seems that here, more than any of my other former places of residence, I’m hanging around with people who are closer to my age or stage of life than not. There are some lovely people at work that I can gain wisdom from, but I’m talking more about life stuff (relationships, outlook, faith etc.) rather than how to do a good job. Maybe it’s being highlighted because I’m going to have a baby and often that’s a time when you have parents around to help you and I won’t have that help, but I do wonder if it’s something other people find too, and whether cities have broken down some of the inter-generational links that smaller communities often naturally have.