Babushkas Should Shut the Fuck Up
Tejas GK| (4d ago)
I use babushka here as shorthand for a certain kind of Indian elder. Not every grandmother. Not every old person. Not even necessarily a woman.
I'm talking about the self-appointed guardians of “our culture” who believe surviving for seventy years automatically makes every opinion they've accumulated along the way sacred.
It doesn't.
Age deserves basic human respect. Ideas do not deserve respect merely because they're old.
And some ideas desperately need to die before the people carrying them pass them on to another generation.
“The Last Innocent Generation”
People love romanticizing older generations.
They were so innocent.
They valued family.
They respected culture.
People were simpler back then.
Great.
Tell your adorable innocent grandmother that you're marrying someone from another caste.
Watch the innocence evaporate.
Tell them you're marrying someone from another religion.
Suddenly the sweet old lady who feeds every neighborhood child becomes an amateur genealogist investigating bloodlines going back six generations.
Tell them you're marrying someone from another country.
Tell them you're not marrying at all.
Tell them you don't want children.
Tell them you're marrying after thirty.
Tell them you're gay.
Tell them your wife earns more than you.
Tell them the husband is staying home with the children.
Apparently innocence has a surprisingly detailed terms-and-conditions document.
Maybe what we're calling innocence was sometimes just a world where fewer people openly challenged the hierarchy.
Watch What Happens When a Girl Is Born
One of the ugliest things about traditional Indian attitudes toward women is that misogyny isn't exclusively enforced by men.
Sometimes its most enthusiastic police officers are women.
Watch certain families when they hear a boy has been born.
Celebration.
Then watch their faces when they hear it's a girl.
That tiny difference in expression tells you more about society than a thousand speeches about Bharatiya sanskriti.
The child hasn't spoken a word.
She hasn't done anything.
She's been alive for minutes.
And somehow she's already disappointed somebody.
Worse, some older women who spent their own lives suffering under patriarchal expectations turn around and enforce those exact expectations on younger women.
You would expect:
“I suffered through this, so my daughter shouldn't have to.”
Instead you sometimes get:
“I suffered through this, so why shouldn't she?”
That's not tradition.
That's generational trauma wearing jewellery.
Women Belong in the Kitchen, Apparently
Go to a traditional family gathering and observe the geography of the house.
The men are sitting in the hall.
Talking.
Laughing.
Watching television.
Discussing politics.
Someone asks:
“Where are the women?”
Take a wild fucking guess.
They're in the kitchen.
Grandmother in the kitchen.
Mother in the kitchen.
Aunts in the kitchen.
Daughters helping in the kitchen.
Food arrives magically in the hall.
Plates disappear magically afterward.
Tea appears.
Snacks appear.
Dinner appears.
Then everyone talks about how beautiful traditional family life is.
Of course it's beautiful when you're sitting on the sofa.
And if a younger woman refuses to participate?
Girls these days.
Yes.
Girls these days have discovered chairs.
Terrifying development.
The Domestic Violence Generation Wasn't “Stronger”
Another piece of nostalgia I can't stand:
“Women were stronger back then. They kept families together.”
Sometimes.
And sometimes they were financially dependent, socially trapped, stigmatized for divorce, pressured by their parents to stay, and had nowhere else to fucking go.
That's not evidence of a healthy marriage.
That's evidence of a lack of exits.
A woman tolerating her husband hitting her isn't a heartwarming example of perseverance.
A family telling her:
“These things happen in marriage.”
isn't wisdom.
It's cowardice disguised as compromise.
Keeping a marriage alive at any cost isn't necessarily an achievement.
Sometimes ending the marriage is the achievement.
Marriage Is Apparently the Final Boss of Life
For a certain kind of Indian elder, human existence follows a remarkably sophisticated roadmap:
Born
↓
School
↓
Job
↓
MARRIAGE MARRIAGE MARRIAGE
↓
Children
↓
Ask those children when they're marrying
↓
Die
You could be 24.
Building a company.
Learning three languages.
Travelling.
Making money.
Writing.
Studying.
Creating things.
Their question?
“Marriage when?”
And God help you if you're a woman.
A 27-year-old unmarried man is “settling his career.”
A 27-year-old unmarried woman causes a national emergency.
Suddenly every auntie becomes a fertility specialist.
Don't wait too long.
Good matches won't come later.
What will people say?
Who are these mysterious people?
And why have we collectively given them administrative access to everyone's lives?
Marriage should happen because two adults genuinely want to build a life together.
Not because grandmother has entered panic mode because the calendar moved forward.
Caste: The Innocence Test
This deserves its own section because caste exposes hypocrisy beautifully.
Ask someone:
“Do you believe all human beings are equal?”
Of course.
“Would you discriminate against someone because of caste?”
Never!
“My son wants to marry someone from another caste.”
System malfunction.
Suddenly there's family compatibility.
Community expectations.
Different backgrounds.
Our customs.
Interesting how discrimination develops sophisticated vocabulary when it needs to sound respectable.
If your worldview collapses because your grandchild loves someone with a different surname, maybe your worldview deserves to collapse.
Religion Isn't Much Better
The same thing happens with interfaith relationships.
A Hindu marrying a Muslim.
A Christian marrying a Hindu.
An atheist marrying someone religious.
Suddenly people who barely understand their own religion become constitutional scholars of marriage.
And somehow two consenting adults choosing each other becomes a family crisis involving seventeen relatives who have absolutely nothing to do with the relationship.
You don't own your children.
You certainly don't own your grandchildren.
You raised human beings.
Not intellectual property.
The White-Skin Obsession
Then there's colourism.
She's beautiful. Very fair.
The baby is becoming fair.
Don't go outside, you'll become dark.
Fairness creams.
Marriage advertisements advertising complexion like it's a processor specification.
A perfectly attractive dark-skinned person can enter a room and somebody's grandmother will casually say something that would get an HR department dissolved.
And everyone laughs.
That's just how old people are.
Why?
Why is age a lifetime subscription to saying stupid shit without consequences?
Dark skin isn't a defect.
Fair skin isn't an achievement.
You didn't grind XP to unlock a lighter complexion.
“Adjust”
Perhaps the most destructive word in the traditional Indian family vocabulary.
Bad husband?
Adjust.
Controlling in-laws?
Adjust.
Unhappy marriage?
Adjust.
Sexism?
Adjust.
Toxic relatives?
Adjust.
Give up your career?
Adjust.
Move somewhere you hate?
Adjust.
Endure disrespect?
Adjust.
There is obviously value in compromise. Any relationship requires it.
But compromise means both people move.
If one person continuously sacrifices while everyone else benefits, that's not compromise.
That's submission.
Zero Civic Sense, Infinite Lectures About Culture
This contradiction is magnificent.
People will lecture younger generations about declining values while:
throwing garbage outside,
spitting wherever convenient,
cutting queues,
blocking roads,
playing religious or wedding music at absurd volumes,
treating public property like nobody owns it,
and believing traffic rules are suggestions.
But yes.
Please tell me again how civilization collapsed because somebody wore shorts.
Culture isn't just festivals, rituals and touching people's feet.
How you behave when sharing space with strangers is culture too.
Civic sense is culture.
Respect Is Apparently One-Way
Traditional respect often works like this:
Older person insults younger person.
Younger person responds.
Everyone:
HOW DARE YOU SPEAK TO AN ELDER LIKE THAT?
Hold on.
Why was the elder allowed to speak to the younger person like that?
Respect should be reciprocal.
Age can earn consideration.
It doesn't grant diplomatic immunity.
If you're seventy and you're cruel, you're still cruel.
You're just experienced at it.
“We've Always Done It This Way”
Possibly the worst justification for anything.
Humans have “always” done plenty of terrible things.
The entire story of civilization is:
We always did X
↓
Someone asks "why?"
↓
Everyone gets angry
↓
We eventually stop doing X
↓
Society improves
Tradition can contain enormous value.
Language.
Food.
Music.
Architecture.
Stories.
Festivals.
Family bonds.
Local knowledge.
Art.
Community.
Preserve those.
But tradition is a package. You are allowed to open the package and throw some things away.
You don't have to preserve sexism because you like Deepavali.
Refusing to Learn Isn't Wisdom
Another thing we excuse too easily is deliberate intellectual stagnation.
“I don't understand these new things.”
Fine.
Nobody knows everything.
“I don't want to understand these new things.”
Different problem.
The world changes.
Technology changes.
Work changes.
Relationships change.
Scientific knowledge changes.
Social norms change.
You don't have to become an expert in artificial intelligence at seventy.
But proudly refusing to learn while demanding that everyone younger obey your worldview is absurd.
Wisdom should make you more curious, not less.
Mental Health? Just Don't Think About It
Depression?
Go outside.
Anxiety?
Why are you worrying?
ADHD?
Kids these days don't concentrate.
Therapy?
Are you mad?
Meanwhile half the family has unresolved trauma stretching across three generations and communicates exclusively through screaming, silence and passive aggression.
Perhaps therapy isn't the Western conspiracy here.
Career Advice From a World That No Longer Exists
Another classic:
Government job.
Engineering.
Medicine.
Bank.
Anything outside the approved menu creates confusion.
Design?
Content creation?
Game development?
Startups?
Freelancing?
Remote work?
YouTube?
Creator businesses?
Internet companies?
Apparently fake jobs until they make enough money, at which point everyone tells relatives they always supported you.
The economy changed.
Career paths changed.
The internet changed the economics of individual creativity.
Advice that worked in 1987 isn't automatically optimal in 2026.
Having Children Isn't Retirement Planning
Children aren't investments.
You don't create a human being so they owe you financial support, grandchildren, marriage compliance and permanent obedience thirty years later.
Parents absolutely deserve love and care.
But:
“I raised you, therefore I control your adulthood”
isn't love.
It's a transaction nobody told the child they were entering.
Privacy Is Not a Western Concept
Salary?
Marriage?
Weight?
Children?
Pregnancy?
Religion?
Career?
Property?
Some relatives treat another person's private life like an AMA session.
And refusal to answer is considered disrespectful.
No.
Boundaries aren't disrespect.
Sometimes:
“That's none of your business.”
is the correct answer.
And Yes, Gen Z Is Better at Some Things
Gen Z gets mocked constantly.
Short attention spans.
Phones.
Brainrot.
TikTok.
Memes.
Anxiety.
Whatever.
There's plenty worth criticizing.
But give this generation some credit.
Younger people are much more willing to ask:
Why?
Why should cooking be women's work?
Why should men be ashamed of emotion?
Why should someone's caste determine who they marry?
Why should skin colour determine attractiveness?
Why should an abusive marriage continue?
Why should having children be mandatory?
Why should everyone follow the same career?
Why can't men stay home with children?
Why can't women prioritize careers?
Why should sexuality be everybody else's business?
Why should mental health be embarrassing?
Why should therapy be shameful?
Why should household work be invisible?
Why should parents control adult children?
Why should someone's worth depend on marriage?
Why should tradition automatically outrank individual freedom?
That instinct to question things is valuable.
Gen Z is also more comfortable with women being financially independent, men being emotionally vulnerable, interracial and intercultural relationships, unconventional careers, therapy, personal boundaries and different definitions of success.
Are we perfect?
Obviously fucking not.
We've invented entirely new categories of stupidity.
We doomscroll.
We compare ourselves constantly.
Algorithms have cooked our attention spans.
Online dating has its own problems.
Social media can turn everyone into narcissists.
Internet politics can make people insane.
Every generation produces bullshit.
The difference is that new bullshit doesn't make old bullshit sacred.
Age and Wisdom Are Correlated, Not Synonymous
This is the actual point.
An older person can be incredibly wise.
They've experienced grief.
Love.
Failure.
Parenthood.
Economic crises.
Deaths.
Marriage.
Career changes.
Decades of watching human beings behave.
There is enormous knowledge available there.
I want that knowledge.
Tell me what you learned about friendship after fifty years.
Tell me which regrets actually mattered.
Tell me how you survived losing someone.
Tell me what money couldn't buy.
Tell me which risks you wish you'd taken.
Tell me what I worry about today that won't matter at sixty.
That's wisdom.
But:
“Girls shouldn't do that.”
“Marry within our caste.”
“What will people say?”
“Dark skin isn't attractive.”
“Divorce brings shame.”
“Men don't cry.”
“Women should adjust.”
“We've always done it this way.”
That's not wisdom.
That's just an old opinion.
Keep the Wisdom. Kill the Bullshit.
I don't want a society where young people automatically dismiss old people.
That would be equally stupid.
I want something much simpler.
Judge ideas on their merits.
A twenty-year-old can be wrong.
A seventy-year-old can be wrong.
A tradition can be beautiful.
A tradition can be cruel.
Modernity can improve our lives.
Modernity can introduce completely new problems.
Take the good.
Discard the bad.
And stop treating criticism of an outdated idea as criticism of every person born before 1960.
Respect grandma.
Love grandma.
Spend time with grandma.
Listen to grandma's stories.
Learn grandma's recipes.
Ask grandma about her childhood.
Take care of grandma when she's old.
But when grandma says your sister shouldn't have a career because women belong at home?
Grandma can shut the fuck up.