Saturday, November 19, 2005

Where Boys Turn to Men

I'm just back from a wedding, that began at half nine this morning. It was a cousin-in-law's wedding that began with a church service, followed by a lull that the cousins duly filled up with breakfast at Killiney Road Kopitiam and then the 8 course wedding lunch that only concluded at about half 3. We joked about how we could eat our way through the day with breakfast and then oysters from the oyster selling food outlet across the walkway, work our way down to Carl's Jr before heading over for lunch. We were kidding, but I must admit the burgers looked very very attractive as we walked by.

At the lunch, there is the usual wandering around, uncertain of where to sit when we realise all the parents are at one table and all the cousins are at another. We christened ourselves the "children's" table. That sparked a great discussion about when we children would become adults. I mean, after all, we are adults in our own right. We have jobs, we pay taxes and most of us live away from our parents. But why are we still comfortable being labelled children, when as children, we couldn't wait to become adults?

The conclusion was that it wasn't so much an age thing. One becomes an adult when one produces the next generation. That's when you're old enough to not sit with your parents and you've become too old to sit with the cousins who talk about computer games, drinking at Zouk the night before and various other things that responsible adults wouldn't really talk about. And that's when I patted DavidtheTan on the back and told him that it would be one of the last times he would be sitting with us, since he is soon to be a father even though he is younger than Packrat.

Funny how when the situation suits the majority, the definition of a label can be easily changed to exclude all of us. That's reverse exclusivity for you.

Ondine tossed this thought in at 18:08

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