Trecherous

Age Hierarchy

The age hierarchy between family and friends and you is unacceptable, even though you might not even notice it had existed. It is the difference in power from young to old, where this royal positioning is both illogical and ridiculous.

Back in Primary School, for some countries grade 1-6, there was always this childish hierarchy of age that determined who listened to who, and naturally, who was more popular subsequently. I'm not sure if this is just a thing in Asian schools, or to be exact, Singaporean schools, but there is bound to be a few who view age as a major aspect in terms of gaining respect the easy way.

This rule also applies between parents and their children, where parents teach them to 'respect', 'be polite'. Somehow, I feel that mine overdo it, and it somehow twists the rules to place me in a bad spot, where I cannot retort with the exact words they used to scold me, where I cannot defend myself the way they defended themselves.

There is the traditional 'respect' that I have no problem with, the type that is earned, and is sincere. It is the type of respect that enables somebody who happened to be older than you by just a decade or more to control you, and takes away your right to talk back, even if it meant standing up for yourself. It is immensely irritating, that. That 'respect' is not earned, it was given, just because the rules of 'respect your elders' were twisted, contorted in a way for their self-gain.

If you'd ask any Chinese family, this is an important element in a harmonious family. There should be no negative comments coming from generations below the pioneer one, and so it goes down the list, whoever was born earlier had no right to speak, but had the right to say anything to those below them. These were the rules of the unfair society, and they had to be followed as long as you were still a child.

I do feel that this concept of 'Hey, I'm older, so you need to move' has to be eradicated from the young children's minds. Things like 'you go shower first because you're the older brother' have to stop too, as this is serving injustice to a child who may or may not want to take a shower just because his or her mother chose to give birth earlier. It just isn't right! The saying of 'respect your elders' is because they have more knowledge than you, are probably more skilled, have been through any experiences that they can recount and teach which are exactly why all elders would earn that respect without you even having to know them in person. However, it's now 'I came out of the womb first so listen to me.'
It's a fierce competition between the hierarchy of the people around you, even if it was in the past and still will be in the future. The rules have been passed down the grapevine so poorly, without any background given that later generations would just take it the way it was given, corrupt the purity of the saying even further, maybe even trimming the grapevine here and there, injecting a few chemicals for modification before passing it on again.

The age hierarchy needs to be rethought. It's now tilted to the side, biased, and about to topple.

Save it before it's too late.