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Graphic by Ricardo Alatorre(M)
The Generation Gap––Since practically forever, parent and child have always had a different outlook on things. When we’re little, we usually go along with what our parents tell us to do. However, when we begin to reach adulthood, in our teenage years, we begin to question things. We begin to doubt our parent’s ways, sometimes with good reason, and yes, sometimes with no reason. Suddenly we begin to go against what our parents taught us, because we think differently.
Sometimes these differences in opinion and thought are small, say, for example, if wearing a specific piece of clothing is appropriate, listening to a certain kind of music, or whether we should return home at nine o’clock or 11 o’clock.
However, sometimes the ideas of parent and child are two great opposing forces in the discussion of serious topics such as gun control or abortion, and personal issues such as an individual’s choice of religion or their own personal moral code.
Such great differences, as I’ve mentioned, have always existed. But failing to manage them in a reasonable and responsible way can lead to an enormous emotional and cultural gap between family members. Heated arguments break out, sometimes no one wins the argument because both points of view are valid, and eventually family members are reduced to saying: “My house, my rules.” or “You can’t tell me what to do!”
The gap that these arguments create is very dangerous. Parent’s feel they can’t relate to their children, and children cease to take their parents seriously. With an unresponsive child, parents will be at a loss for what to do with their own children. The children, who will not pay attention to their parents anymore, will do as they please.
This is not to say doing as you please is a bad thing, it can even be a good thing. However, these children will be open and vulnerable to any, and this means, any influence. Anyone who wishes to do them harm by leading them into a life of drugs, crime and moral decadence will have easy targets.
The 20th and 21st centuries have been the stage of the largest and fastest technological revolution in human history. In only 100 years, a little bit over the average human lifetime, we have gone from believing air travel to be close to impossible, to turning it into the fastest way to travel. We have gone from thinking of the phone as a strange, but useful contraption, into believing it a necessity for the modern industrialized world. We have turned messaging into something that took weeks at a time into something that takes less than a second. We have taken our information searches from our libraries to our own homes, more specifically, to our computers, to the Internet, to which practically everyone is connected.
In such a rapidly changing world, both parent and child are beginning to get lost, taking different paths, trying to adapt. More than ever before, communication, seeking to understand before trying to be understood, and mutual respect will be the key to preserving our families. We must do our best to stop the generation gap from growing, what’s more, we must seek to mend it.
by Ricardo Alatorre (M).
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