Dear LPG,

I remember, when my son was about seven, catching him with a packet of biscuits that he did not ask for.  We had a bit of an argument about them, because at the tender age of just seven years old he had been instructed to ask for anything he wanted, and he had disobeyed me.  This was the first time that I told him something that I have repeated on many subsequent occasions.

According to the internet there is some dispute as who was the first to say it, but I quoted him that age old adage "With great power, comes great responsibility." adding that his time of great power had not yet arrived which was why he had to be obedient.  I remember the amount of variations of that lesson that occurred before it sank in properly, but now that he is a well-established member of the London work force, I hear him telling his six-year-old the very same words. 

It is an undisputed truth that we all have to take onboard, but now that my days of ‘power’ (well, let’s say relative power), are behind me and I look forward to that well-earned period of rest, relaxation, catching up with family, holidays, day to day freedom , and doing all the things that I did not get around to over the past 40 or so years that we call the first decade or so of our retirement ,  it occurs to me that it is at this point that I am often asking my Dad, who has a degree of dementia, to make choices that he can no longer make without a little help. 

I then think of a time in about twenty or so years, when I may be the one finding my horizons being lowered a little even in the smallest of ways.  It has me quoting the well-known saying with a couple of word substitutions.  My version is   "With diminished power, comes diminished responsibility." and reminds me that it is important to keep positive, but also be as realistic, as I expected my seven-year-old to be back in the day,

By the way it must have been Voltaire because the Spiderman film which claimed that bit of dialogue was released on 4th June 2002, when my son was a lot older than seven.

EL, New Cross