Age & ego

" No you should not say such things to him. He is aging. You should respect him," set my dad.

" I was trying to help him by telling him how to take his medicine," I explained, " by any means I was not disrespectful".

"Well his thoughts are different. He comes from a different era and he did not like the way you spoke with him", my dad still nit accepting my opinion.

"So helping someone is a crime now? Guilty as charged" I was furious.

"Enough of this sarcasm. He is old and hence you should respect him. I should not hear a single complaint from him," now my dad was as furious as me.

"Fine. Let him take the medicines how he likes them. I will not tell him the right way. For respect I will salute every time I see him. I hope that will be okay," my sarcasm continued.

" Stop that right away this is your final warning, " dad stone of from the room. I stay there confused and angry.

Does this conversation sound relatable? Before that let me give you a quick background of what happened. One of my elderly relatives had come to our place to stay for a few days. He was taking his medications. I saw that he was breaking a film coated tablet. Being a pharmacist I know that film Koti tablets have a purpose. That tablet was a made for sustained release. Breaking the tablet will not serve is purpose of sustained release of medicine. So I told him not to break the tablet and swallow it whole. He told me that she is much folder then me and kbows what is the best. I told him about the principle of sustained release tablets in lay terms, that he can understand them. However as an insult he called me a compounder and said I belong outside a doctor's clinic. You also told me not to tell him what to do because I am much younger than him. By this time I was angry but I contained my anger. I asked him if he told the same thing to the doctor because obviously the doctor would be younger than him. He got even more Furious and said that younger people should give their mouth shut in front of older people. This is how the Coral begin and then he complain to my dad that I was being disrespectful to him.

Let me get this straight. My relative became Furious because being someone who is younger than him advised him. According to him younger people have no right or system to advise the elderly. This is what bothered him and that is why he complain to my dad. Things like this happen in any multi generational household. In these scenarios always the younger people are asked to keep their mouth shut.

What I don't understand is why there is this an ageist mindset? Why is it always told that older people should always be respected? Does age give all the knowledge? No it does not. Do older people feel that they know more than everybody else in the world? Yes they absolutely to believe that they are smarter than everybody on this planet. The only reason is that they are older.

I want to tell the older generation one thing. Old age does not mean knowledge, wisdom, and intelligence. Your age is not automatically going to give you knowledge in needs areas like medicine or engineering. Have an open mind. If a younger person is telling you something it may mean that they know something specific. Maybe they are trying to help you. Maybe they are experts in the field about which they are talking. In this case keep your ego aside. At least listen to what they have to say. Your age does not give you the Supreme Power. Your age does not make you knowledgeable. Because of your age you do not get the power to disrespect or insult a younger person. Your age definitely does not give you the right to be rude to anyone. When you interact with anybody in sure that you keep your ego locked in your locker just like how you have kept your generational wealth.

In my case I did not advise my elderly relative because speaking with him was beyond my intellectual scale. I had no interest in a giving with him because I did not want to waste my energy on an old and aging man. I hope nobody has to face such situations.