Growing Pains

HUMOR

By: Shaista Khurshid, Calgary Alberta

There is an unspoken bond or ‘honor among thieves’ between South-Asians women, to not to ask about other women’s age. Though other topics are open for discussion, like clothes, children, husbands, cars, houses etc, without a frown.

Don’t get me wrong, regardless of the rule, we are all curious about our friends or foe’s ages all the time. Probably more so because it’s inaccessible to us. Or maybe we’re jealous or we feel competitive. In general we want to know everything about others but at the same time we want to keep tight lipped about our own affairs. Meaning, we keep our skeletons in our own locked closets and never let them out in any circumstances.

D o H i d e B u t S e e k

So, back to the original discussion. We have developed a subtle detective method to find out the age of others. These detective methods are like in any crime solving procedure: getting the clues, the evidence, and more. There was an older method, which was used by our mothers and grandmothers which required the date of marriage and date of birth of the children, but, we have established a more sophisticated method to solve this concern. Instead of finding out when the women married, and when the children were born, we like to discuss plantar-fasciitis and find out who got it and when. We gather our data by taking subtle signs of arthritis, high cholesterol, hair loss, cataract, colored greys and successfully converting into the age range. Sometimes, to dig deeper into finding clues we gather data about common diseases usually linked to age, to be more clear. The diseases are a vast field and can expand to vertigo, cataracts, arthritis, neck and joint pains, weight gain, body weight and shape change. You name it. The strongest competitors are hot flashes; this clue determines an approximate to more accurate age.

Carbon Dating

Other methods involve checking Facebook, Instagram, snapchat messages and photos. And God forbid, if someone posts older pictures of themselves. Trust me, this is a goldmine in this business. A picture is considered more than a thousand words, but in this case, it gives away the timeline of a life. Since fashion changes more than the seasons, and up to date wise women keep an eye on all fashion trends from dresses to shoes, make-up, and furniture to which model of Louis-Vuitton bag is that. We are good at pinpointing the right time the picture was taken and guessing the age range of the subject investigated. Our methods can isolate the timeline better than carbon dating might do. So in a nutshell this detective business is not a joke and other people cannot even phantom what we can dig out from this method.

Formula for Success

Why do we want to find out about other people's ages? There is a whole psychology of insecurity behind it. Let’s start with when we were born. We are compared with others vehemently by anyone and everyone to random cousins, neighbors and more. So much so that a stranger walking by, can compare you to their daughters, nieces and granddaughters and still prove that how young and accomplished their progeny is compared to you. So, the formula for success is who gets the title of the youngest (add a profession) for men and (add a married date + housekeeping training) for women. Though nobody dares to be proud of who died first (roll eyes) into the equation.

Save your Behind

So, we women have developed a system (based mostly on lies), that all our grandmothers are married at 13, mothers at 15 and us at 17. This keeps the buffer period intact if accidently we didn’t produce three children one after the other while maintaining a 90 lbs weight, but that is a discussion for later. Back to the topic of age, though we were all married by 17, but interestingly all of us have an undergrad degree by then. How did that happen? Probably we’re geniuses, or so (roll eyes).

The push for being younger stems from that old age is not gold age in our culture. Though we say it. And everyone does lip service to it, just like we do about black lives, indigenous affairs and Muslim discrimination, harassment, and women inequity. In the same way the elderly issues are swept under the rug.

Don’t get me wrong, we have very beautiful reverence words for older people in our language and some of us do really mean it. But it is also used as a lethal weapon by some aunties. So that’s how it goes; As soon as they find out that you have a married son or daughter or a child in a university, your status ascends from a sister to an aunty. This means, I am young and fresh, and you’re old and wrinkled. I am better than you, so watch out, you’re about to be replaced. Just imagine, if they find out that you’re a real grandma. Oh My God (I am dizzy - my world is spinning I hope nobody knows - vertigo)

Let’s stop here; I think you guys have already got a good idea about the growing pains of south-Asian women. Please do not ask my age or try to sneak into my Facebook, Instagram, Spotify, or snapchat account. Also do not try to judge me by my children’s age. I married very young; way too young. But I think you might already have guessed my age by now.

Shhhhh!!!!!

Photo by Edward Howell on Unsplash