The Difference in Time
As Friday sun-rays intrude my room, I stretch out lazily predicting the routine that I will go through. This day of the week is the gathering day, the day different generations come together to meet up in my grandparents' house. We look forward to this day to share stories about what had happened earlier. Although the gathering unites one family, it brings together different generations. This sometimes raises conflicts especially in the way we spend time. We settle down to talk after a delicious Friday lunch, and the big gathering slowly breaks down to smaller gatherings between ‘similar groups’. On one side I am sitting with my cousins sharing and discussing ideas on how to spend the rest of the day and usually plan further to the next day or even weekend. Our plans include a splendid slumber party with latest DVDs to watch and night snacks that barely involve us cooking. Yet it always has to be confirmed by the older generation, my grandma, as most of the plans take place in her house.
I always know the ‘lecture’ that will come before the confirmation no matter what the plan is. The question that I learned by heart is: “How useful is this? What will you learn? Do you know how we spent our time when we were at your age?” It’s the weekend, we must make the most out of it and therefore we start to defend ourselves even though we aren’t accused of anything in particular. My little sister always starts with homework, because this is what most of our time is spent doing and, of course, no one can question how useful this is. My cousin will carry on the conversation and declare that watching TV and surfing the internet will supposedly enables us to learn more information about life, ranging from cooking to physics. My other cousin argues that slumber parties bring us as cousins closer together and, along with other gatherings, enhances our social life. Horse riding, I state, is another way we spend our free time. It does not only makes us fit, but also develops patience and a stronger personality. With the end of this ‘defense report’, my grandma smiles and says: “Indeed it is useful; your time is different than our time.” This sentence makes me thankful and grateful to have an understanding family. A family, regardless of the difference in time, understands that globalization and technology have rearranged priorities and that things are now done in a different way. However, doesn’t mean that I am exempt of listening to the second part of the ‘lecture’. The lecture is not just a comparison but also a piece of our culture and history. I can’t remember the first time I heard this story, but it still impresses me. Cooking, which involved more than making sandwiches or even baking some cupcakes, was one of their free time activities which then evolved into a skill or even a profession. Other household activities such as weaving and looking after other siblings took most of their time. Their time was more concentrated within the house and the family. This was mostly due to the fact that other than the word of mouth, there were very few means of communications between people and no places to ‘hang out’ at other than their house or with the ‘mutawa’a’ that used to teach them Quran. At that time mothers as well as their daughters were concerned about marriage. Mothers would choose girls that are able to accomplish household activities to be their daughters in law and this, as my grandma states, is the other main reason for the choice of activities done at that time. It made them practice to be better housewives. “Your time is different than our time.” This sentence is sometimes what I consider as a solution to the conflicts between generations. The older generation had duties which consumed most of their time, while technology and globalization enabled us, as a newer generation, to communicate and create links with the outer world. It also introduced personal hobbies that we, as individuals, liked instead of uniformed duties.