VP of my class in elementary school. A slew of leadership activities in middle. Captain of soccer team in HS. Board member of the Indian association in college. Class President of my 200+ student body class in pharmacy school. Involvement in various community activities since childhood well into adulthood. People’s lives in my hands today. So many responsibilities successfully handed and yet…
At 21 I was told by an Indian uncle that if I was MC’ing a show with another 21 year old, we wouldn’t be able to handle a “catastrophe” if it were to occur. Why? We had to be “chaperoned” on stage. Why? When I asked why he got aggressive. He got mean. He told me to shut up and what he says goes. How toxic is this mentality? At 21 I, an adult who till date had already held so much responsibility in my hands, was being told I was “too much of a child to do things without a chaperone”. And I was told to shut up without an explanation.
In my now 4th decade of life, same thing. While making leaps and bounds in a community service activity, same thing, shut down because some Aunty decided to have a fit. Yes, let’s call it what it is, a literal fit. And since she needed to be pacified first (how mature) it was apparently okay to disrespect me and my counterparts. Again… why?
We were given lectures about “respect” and “not being toxic”. Oh our toxicity btw was questioning why we were being mistreated. Alternately this aunty had harassed me to hell while I was actively in labor delivering my baby. She harassed me to hell again two days later when I developed a very severe complication postpartum. It was hard. Not to mention the hormones and the separation anxiety from being separated from my baby but no… I had to deal with this woman and that too in a nonreactive way. But according to the uncles and aunties, THAT (her behavior) wasn’t toxic. Harassing a pregnant and postpartum woman was apparently okay. Not a single one of them (except maybe an uncle or two) said a word about it. But oh did they have a lot of lecturing to do when my peers spoke up for me and the disrespect I/we had faced.
Why is there a double standard in Eastern cultures? Why is it okay to openly disrespect youth. Why is it not okay for the youth to ask to be treated like humans and like adults. Basically I can have and care for a baby but I cannot demand respect. I cannot ask for my voice to be heard. I cannot be treated like an adult just because someone else is older.
Why?
Why the double standard?
And then the older society wonders why the youth don’t get involved. Why do the youth keep to themselves? Why don’t they go out and vote. Why don’t they go out and do things for the community.
Well why would we? Every time we want to do something along comes some older person trying to micromanage us. Trying to baby us. Trying to treat us like we are idiots who cannot do anything without our hands being held. When does that stop by the way?
It’s exhausting and annoying. We are better off just doing nothing then.
From a mind that spends a lot of time thinking... 