Fathers and sons

I'm a great believer in the power of suggestion. Come to think of
it, I'm a great believer in almost anything. I think I'm quite a
gullible person. No, that isn't the right word - credulous maybe. When
there was all the fuss about the health risks of mobile phones in the
papers, I found myself sure that I could feel something wrong with my
ear every time I used one. Obviously this was an early warning sign
that I was destined for a tumour. Yes, I'm credulous, and always eager
to think the worst, just like my mother.

Just like my mother. It's hard to express how scary that thought is to
me. The inevitable metamorphosis is starting to happen. As I get older,
I find myself showing signs of gradually turning into a hybrid of my
parents, and I hate it. It's a terrible thing, but there's not much I
can do about it and I'd really rather not think about it, just like
famine in Africa or war in mysterious Central European republics. I'd
rather fill up my mind with trivia, pack it to the brim with useless
information, like some recycling station for knowledge, ready for pub
quizzes. If I'm lucky, it will become impossible for me to think about
anything other than trainer brands, bank accounts, processor speeds and
mobile phone tariffs. Especially mobile phone tariffs, the motorway
routes of my generation.

Our fathers talked to other fathers about the best route between two
given points, whether the M-this was better than the A-that and the
B-the-other, whether you could avoid the ring road if you took an
earlier turn-off. Their sons talk to other sons about the relative
merits of Orange as opposed to Vodafone, of talk plans versus
pay-as-you talk. This is the shared territory of my generation. When we
were children we talked about football and stickers and football
stickers. A few years later, the conversation turned to music and money
and girls and drugs. We still talk about those things, but they are
starting to be displaced by computers and cars and deposits on flats
and whether we need to cut down on drink and drugs. Before too long,
these subjects will begin to be edged out by mortgages and marriages
and baby clothes, and then schools and pension plans and parents
evenings and whatever else. Then our sons will be teenaged, and back
will come music and girls and drugs, but this time we'll be worrying
about them. Then we will be old, and it will be how our sons want to
put us in homes. It's an inevitable decline by degrees. We already talk
about how the music that's in the charts these days is rubbish, and how
we don't have the stamina to go out seven nights a week any more. We're
all turning into our dads, and there's nothing we can do about it.