Why do we count a pregnancy in weeks?

This morning I saw a new RUMAG post come online. Call me a supporter, but I think they often have a point, without me knowing I felt that way. Yes, that's quite impressive. Let me quote today's quote: ”HE.IS.24.MONTHS’ 2. YOUR.CHILD.IS.2.’ Can I get an aaaaaamen? But not just any aaaaaamen, I want an aaaaamen that encompasses all my years of calculations in ignorance. That you could see in my eyes that I had to calculate how old Klaas was and that the mother looked a bit superior because she knew that higher mathematics.

It's a good thing I had mental math in school, because I dare swear that today's youth takes longer to come to the sum. In my world, a pregnancy roughly lasts 9 months. In yours too, right? But women who are pregnant suddenly talk about weeks. Most of them, I don't want to lump you in with the big group right away. But they are 18 weeks or 32 weeks pregnant, never 4 months or (wait let me calculate) 8 months. And then you think that the whole issue will resolve itself when they bring a child into the world, but that's not the case, no. It just continues, only then we calculate further in months and not in weeks again.

I always feel relieved when a child has passed the respectable age of two years, because then I know it stops. Most of the time. Until then, we still calculate Storm, Levi, Lente, and Mees in months. And there I am again in the supermarket with a bag of soup vegetables in my hands and a mother with a toddler next to me: twenty-four minus three, that's two years minus three, so one year and nine months. Aha, Henkje is almost two then, what a big boy already.

I just casually asked a random mother (hi Daan), how this comes about. But we think it has to do with the size of the event. The bigger the thing is, the smaller we calculate it. Apparently. But a tip: if you run into someone in the supermarket, just give a rough estimate of your child's life week/life month, it saves a lot of headaches.