The Age Paradox
A 15-year-old boy, who was allowed to perform a surgery under the doting and gloating prodding of his parents, is a sign of our times.While it is yet another example of the Indian obsession with records, particularly those involving the Guinness Book of World Records, it raises questions of a larger kind.
What is the 'right' age for anything and why? Who determines it and for what reasons? Why is it okay to travel on a half ticket till you're 12, drive a moped at 16, vote in a government at 18 but wait till 21 to get married if you are a man and 25 to start drinking if you happen to live in Delhi? We protect the young through an array of laws and yet have no qualms sending our young to die in the name of country before they are ready to buy a drink.
By definition, the correlation between age and maturity is a fuzzy one. Some people are incredibly mature at 14 while the rest of us never really grow up. And yet in general, it is fair to relate age with maturity and to create a system that protects the young, from others and from their own selves. The problem, of course, is that legislative action is context-insensitive; so a drunk brat who mows down innocent bystanders gets our protection, while a 19-year-old in a consensual relationship with someone a year younger can get hauled up for statutory rape.
Of course, one can argue that this is the price that must be paid if we want an impartial system of judicial protection. The law needs a measure of blindness to be effective; some injustice is inevitable if the larger cause is to be adhered to. Deterrence comes from the arbitrary impartiality shown by the judiciary There are no extenuating circumstances that allow one to blur the difference between the right and wrong, at least in terms of the law.
The deeper issue is one of how we as a society view age. Today, the young receive strongly contradictory signals about what is age-appropriate behaviour. Achievement today is measured by compression; how quickly how much before its appropriate time does one acquire a skill. Mothers vie with each other in getting their child to learn the alphabet more quickly and three-year olds are playing tennis and the piano,and in many cases both. We make a Budhia run marathons, and five-years olds gyrate to item songs.
And yet, we are almost paranoid in our legislative protecion of the young. This is paradoxically most visible in the US, where after pushing the young to the sexual brink, the law is almost puritanical in its observance of age limits. In India too, we are trapped between encouraging precociousness and legislating protection and are unclear about how we want our young to behave.
Our tradition has been one of virtually infinite protection. We are 'boys' and 'girls' even as we are deemed mature enough to get married and raise families. The precociousness we abet is not so much about making our children adults faster but taking pride in them as gifted children. We push our children into early adulthood while believing that we are prolonging their childhood. We mistake our indulgence for their childhood. We are living out our lives through our young and they serve as a screen on which we project both our fantasies and insecurities.
The idea of age as an objectively measurable number is a relatively recent one. As is the idea of life being anything other than a condition into which we are born and which we must navigate till our time comes. Life is now a project, a competitive sport in which we must outrun others before the referee blows the whistle. Our best athletes are the young, and so a part of us pushes them hard while another part protects them blindly Adolescents are often characterised as being confused, but is it really they who should carry this tag?
santoshdesai1963@indiatimes.com
What is the 'right' age for anything and why? Who determines it and for what reasons? Why is it okay to travel on a half ticket till you're 12, drive a moped at 16, vote in a government at 18 but wait till 21 to get married if you are a man and 25 to start drinking if you happen to live in Delhi? We protect the young through an array of laws and yet have no qualms sending our young to die in the name of country before they are ready to buy a drink.
By definition, the correlation between age and maturity is a fuzzy one. Some people are incredibly mature at 14 while the rest of us never really grow up. And yet in general, it is fair to relate age with maturity and to create a system that protects the young, from others and from their own selves. The problem, of course, is that legislative action is context-insensitive; so a drunk brat who mows down innocent bystanders gets our protection, while a 19-year-old in a consensual relationship with someone a year younger can get hauled up for statutory rape.
Of course, one can argue that this is the price that must be paid if we want an impartial system of judicial protection. The law needs a measure of blindness to be effective; some injustice is inevitable if the larger cause is to be adhered to. Deterrence comes from the arbitrary impartiality shown by the judiciary There are no extenuating circumstances that allow one to blur the difference between the right and wrong, at least in terms of the law.
The deeper issue is one of how we as a society view age. Today, the young receive strongly contradictory signals about what is age-appropriate behaviour. Achievement today is measured by compression; how quickly how much before its appropriate time does one acquire a skill. Mothers vie with each other in getting their child to learn the alphabet more quickly and three-year olds are playing tennis and the piano,and in many cases both. We make a Budhia run marathons, and five-years olds gyrate to item songs.
And yet, we are almost paranoid in our legislative protecion of the young. This is paradoxically most visible in the US, where after pushing the young to the sexual brink, the law is almost puritanical in its observance of age limits. In India too, we are trapped between encouraging precociousness and legislating protection and are unclear about how we want our young to behave.
Our tradition has been one of virtually infinite protection. We are 'boys' and 'girls' even as we are deemed mature enough to get married and raise families. The precociousness we abet is not so much about making our children adults faster but taking pride in them as gifted children. We push our children into early adulthood while believing that we are prolonging their childhood. We mistake our indulgence for their childhood. We are living out our lives through our young and they serve as a screen on which we project both our fantasies and insecurities.
The idea of age as an objectively measurable number is a relatively recent one. As is the idea of life being anything other than a condition into which we are born and which we must navigate till our time comes. Life is now a project, a competitive sport in which we must outrun others before the referee blows the whistle. Our best athletes are the young, and so a part of us pushes them hard while another part protects them blindly Adolescents are often characterised as being confused, but is it really they who should carry this tag?
santoshdesai1963@indiatimes.com
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