Road to Perdition

I had only read about old people being stubborn and child-hearted at their age until I started living with my grandparents. Fifty years separate them and me and it is quite substantial for a generation gap. But the trouble is it is not about a late night party or a trip to Goa, it is about the most basic of basic issues, like taking medicine or not exerting.

If you had to think for reasons for not taking a pill, what could they be? It is bitter. It is giving me loose motions. Or worst come worst, I just can't swallow them. But here I here reasons like:

1. Wednesday is not a good day to take medicine.
2. This pill will give me a haemorrhage.
3. The gold drops recommended by xyz relative are working just fine.
4. The doctor doesn't know his job.
   

You can only win a debate if someone is willing to argue. If there are two parallel arguments without any common grounds it becomes impossible to even debate, forget winning.

Age on their side gives them the edge of seniority. Seniority means they can just veto your point. It also gives them the right to be so worried about you but not allow you to do so when it's your turn. It is sheer double standards.

Age gives them experience. As a direct result, there is always the age old theory that experience is the biggest teacher and you still have the world to see.

They don't realise we have much more access to information than any of our previous generations and we have the education to logically interpret this information into knowledge but we are always kids in their eyes and need to abide by the Grandpa's law.

If you tell them that even you won't listen to them on matters of health, then they take the cover of philosophy by mentioning they have lived their life and they are at the fag end while we have barely begun our lives. The argument itself is utterly pessimistic.

I have been fortunate enough to see both my maternal and paternal grandparents and have their presence around me during the 22 years that I have lived. I have grown to respect them and love them for everything they have done for me. When it is my turn now, they bind my hands and that hurts. Spare the rod and spoil the child, but are their any options with grandparents???