Age Doesn't Matter.

Honesty sometimes is difficult. Because sometimes you have to be honest about things that do not sit comfortably with you. Some truths are like focused beams of sun. They burn intensely. They are able to melt rock and metal. So our frail human hearts stand no chance against the intense scrutiny of blunt and brutal honesty.

The most difficult honesty to have with yourself is around the human relations that you have around you. It is important to sit and reflect on them from time to time. It’s one thing to measure and analyse a talking stage with a potential relationship. Or with a platonic relationship with a work colleague.

The roots of these relationships have not yet set themselves firmly. So such relationships are easy for you to uproot and set aside. They might have a special memory here or there, but they have not set themselves solid enough to stick. If you do wish to sever the relationship with such an individual, the feeling of loss will not last long. Usually, a day or two, but within a week, you’ll be right as rain.

It is the relationships that are older and more rooted that are the hardest to evaluate. It is the relationship that happened before your conscious mind developed. Relationships with people you call your old friends, your cousins, your aunts, your siblings, and your parents. You see, these are the relationships that, when evaluated with brutal honesty, might feel like drinking water filled with razor blades.

It is safe to say that as people, we grow up and evolve. So, the relationships that may have developed in our young days of life probably occurred automatically. Perhaps you became friends with someone because your parents and their parents work in the same place. You did not choose this friendship. This friendship happened to you; you didn’t make it happen.

The following can be said about relationships with family. You know, when I was young, I wondered how it is that some families would have certain members of the family not talking to one another. I always wondered how that happens. Yes, I was blinded by my upbringing, as my parents and siblings did and still do their best to maintain unity within the family.

But those innocent scales of youth fell off. You begin to realise, like that childhood friendship that just occurred, there are members of the family you just so respect because the respect was imposed. Perhaps they are older, they are the aunt or uncle. But growing up, once the scales of youth fell off, you begin to find it difficult to respect a person by virtue of just age.

Age means absolutely nothing. I actively stopped respecting a person because they are older than me when I realised that 50-year-olds in the workplace act like 16-year-olds in high school. Just because you lived longer, does not mean you know better. In fact, I can go further and say that if you are older and not living the life that I desire, you have nothing to teach me.

Personally, I respect the really old people. The grannies and grandpas. I value the stories they can tell about a world that did not have TV and living on farms during Apartheid. And most of them, which is true, someone indicated that they walk slowly because their bodies are starting to fail them, and they talk slowly because their minds are starting to fail them as well.

When I see the gran-ma or gran-dad, I will try to help them to the best of my abilities. Maybe they need help walking up the stairs. Maybe they need help understanding the terms and conditions of a purchase they are about to make. Because the process of ageing is preparing them for the afterlife, these individuals do need help to live the last of their days.

However, if you are an able adult who is still functional, your age means nothing to me. Absolutely nothing. You may be 70 or 80, age is not a determinant of respect. And trust me, developing this mindset was not a walk in the park.

I grew up in a very modest, stay in your lane, avoid the limelight and be the smallest person in the room household. From an early age, even if you were 2 years older than me, I was taught to call the person Ausi or Abuti, and if perhaps a bit older, say a decade, Mme or Ntate.

It took at 66 year old Afrikaaner who was Lieutenant General in the old Apartheid SADF to teach me that age does not warrant respect. And seeing fully grown adults whom I would have respected because of their age act like kids in the workplace further solidified my belief that indeed age is not a determinant of respect. And herein lies the key.

Tougher relationships to analyse, like that with aunts, uncles and even your parents, are where the stings of honesty are sharp and deep. I’ll never forget when a work colleague lost his mother, and he felt nothing. Obviously, one gave his condolences and offered a shoulder to cry on. He could not be bothered.

He had no relationship with his mother. She was present in his life. But she had no value in it. He told me that she wasn’t the alcoholic mom, or neglected his needs. It just so happens that as he grew up, he began to see his mother for who she is.

And seeing who she truly is made him understand the family dynamics of his home. It was because of her mother that their father left. It was because of her mother that the talent that his brother had as a soccer player was never fully explored. She actively sabotaged him.

The icing on top was that, according to him, her mother was narcissistic. Everything was about her. To her, the world was against her. She was God’s favourite child. Afterall, she was a deacon at her church. She was never at fault. And he grew up, realised that his mother was the reason his family was so fractured.

I always think of him as we don’t work together anymore. We can never downplay the role of a parent in a child’s life. Hence, you can find 30-year-olds, 35-year-olds and even 40-year-olds living to win the approval of their parents. I had a friend who, all his life, wanted his father to be proud of him. Never happened. So much so, he chose to break from his family completely.

One thing that I have learned from these guys is that they accept that they don’t have a relationship with their parents. They appreciate, and they are grateful that their parents fulfilled their duties as parents by taking them to school and raising them as children. But now that they are adults, their parents still think they are children.

If you are like me, you’d think that’s how its supposed to be. That no matter how old you get, you are always a child to your parents. Then you realised that notion is merely a power play for parents to continue controlling their children.

I always think of an episode of Sugar Mamas on Moja Love when I think of this. The boy wanted to marry his sugar mama. The mom explained that their tradition is that for such matters, they need to consult the eldest male child in the family. The eldest male child, the uncle, came on national television drunk as drunk can be. Now imagine how drunk and more unruly he is when the cameras are off. So, because he is the uncle, that young man would have to respect him?

I vehemently say no to that nonsense. Even if you were my age, there is no way I could ever respect the opinions of a drunkard. A drunkard lacks self-discipline and any fibre of self-respect. So why would he then get any from me? Because he is older? No ways.

I use the parent-child relationship as those relationships are the hardest to objectively, critically and honestly evaluate. Especially when you are older. You sometimes get trapped in the “they sacrificed for me, I should do so for them”. One therapist once said that we shouldn’t allow ourselves to fall into that trap. They fulfilled their roles as parents, as they were supposed to. Pastors would say that they fulfilled their duty by developing a Heavenly gift that was trusted with them.

Once we leave the realm of childhood, they symbolically become our parents. Personally, I am of those who believe that as Black people, we are held back by old people. In business, in social structures, in politics, in religion, in almost every aspect of our lives. The idea that we need to respect and treat old people with reverence just because they are old, it is what keeps us behind the other races as Black people.

I promise to expound on this in another post. In this one, I wanted to explore and suggest that it is okay to be honest with yourself. No matter how uncomfortable it may be. It is okay to see the truth in the relationships we have with people, especially with old friends and family. It is okay to cut some of these relationships, and it is okay to understand that there is no relationship with the ones that can’t be cut off.

It is okay to be honest with ourselves.

The more we can do it, the more we can grow as people. Honesty is the best policy for a reason.