The world is getting older. While there may be fewer young people, there are more grumpy old men to complain about them. I, Jan Molby, am becoming one of them.

According to a UN report: “Population ageing is enduring: we will not return to the young populations that our ancestors knew.” HelpAge International puts some flesh on the bones: “Today almost one in ten people are over 60 years old. By 2050 the figure will be higher than one in five.”

I had at one time found this longevity trend reassuring. As I stroll through my forties, however, I have become aware of a cruel twist of fate that appears not only to have impacted myself, but also a good many of my male friends and colleagues. No matter how much younger we may now look compared to our fathers at a comparable age, there appears to be little escape from the inevitable transformation that men must make. Baby becomes boy, boy becomes teenager, teenager becomes man, and man becomes his father.

Physical changes apart, my transformation into my father has been along the lines of increasingly opinionated behaviour and a growing failure to understanding the world around me...especially the younger generation. At least, according to my wife.

Fashion follies

Let’s take fashion. I’ve been dumbfounded for some time now by the fashion for young boys to wear their jeans and trousers either very low on their hips or (and in most cases) with their underwear in plane sight or their backside hanging out. A court in the UK, however, ruled in May of this year that a teenage boy had a legal right to wear his trousers below his waistline. So it’s legal then, but I still have a number of practical questions concerning this fashion trend:

• How do you run for a bus or run up a flight of stairs if your trouser leg only starts at the top of your knee caps?
• Do young boys have to buy trousers with a larger waistband and shorter leg length in order to ‘get this look’?
• Has this last issue led to shortages for those of us who are blessed with large waists and short legs?

Unfathomable fashion aside, there are other, worrying, characteristics of my father that I now seem to share. I impart advice on anything and everything at the drop of a hat; I have little clue about what is ‘hot’ and what is not in today’s music world (what I hear on the radio nowadays seems to be a lot of angry talking over decent 80s melodies); I am offended by swearing in films and TV; I believe that my aging body is still able to perform the feats of strength and speed it was capable in the past (and blame being out of breath on an oncoming cold); I am constantly flummoxed by technology and the internet and my most-used phrases are “I knew that would happen” and “I told you so”.

On the domestic front, I’m home more nights than I’m out, I drink less than I did in my youth and I can be relied upon to cook a decent dinner, walk home babysitters and fix the plumbing. So becoming my father is not all bad news. At least, according to my wife.