The Generation Gap

The title of this post was a phrase coined back in the 60s or 70s--gap between the feelings of generations--most notably (at the time) between parents and their young-adult children.  In those days, there was a huge difference between the values of the parents (who had lived through the Great Depression and World War II) and the children (who had been raised by those parents who wanted their children to have better than they had).  We Baby Boomers were a coddled and ungrateful group, but we couldn't be considered among those who have a sense of entitlement, such as the most recent kids.  Early in life, we didn't have televisions or computers or cell phones...or video games...so we couldn't expect what didn't exist.  I'm just not sure that we understood or appreciated how hard our parents worked to give us things they didn't have as children.  I always thought we were poor...but we weren't.  My parents knew that we didn't have to have all that we wanted in order to be happy; they had lived out the credo on that.  We were happy with what we had.  (Or mostly.  When dishwashers came into existence, I begged my mother to get one.  Her response was, "I already have a dishwasher; I have you and your sister!"  I was not amused.)

For 85% of my teaching career, I prided myself with the knowledge that I was still keeping up with the students.  I could still relate to what they were going through/thinking because, in my mind at least, I was still one of them.  Then slowly, slowly, it began to sink in that my teenage students were in a world apart from what mine had been.  Our experiences as children were growing farther and farther apart.  I didn't see it coming.  It just seeped into my consciousness one incident at a time.

I think the first indication that I had came in the mid-to-late 80s when I was Youth Director at my church in Pontiac, IL.  One night, the kids and I were having a discussion about our lives as Children of God, and one of the kids sat there and told me:  "It was easier for you, Ms. McNary.  You didn't have this and that  to worry about."  (I'm pretty sure she said sex and peer pressure and drugs, but I'm only certain that she mentioned drugs.)  Another youngster said, "Oh, come on, Susie!  She was raised in the 60s...the drug generation!"  I went on to explain that, although yes, indeedy, I did grow up in the "drug generation", I had never, ever used an illegal drug.  Had never even tried smoking pot. (All of which is still true, today.)  I'm not sure the kids believed me.  But in that moment, my mind flashed back to a teenage conversation I had with my mother one time...about how things were easier for her when she was a kid...that temptations were harder on MY generation.  God bless my mother.  In her wisdom, she thought about it and agreed with me!  There would be no argument about her growing up in the Depression and not knowing if they would be able to save the family farm, etc. There would be no need for me to defend my generation's failings.  I had won one!  (Or did I??  I've thought about that conversation so many times all these many years later, knowing that my mother comprehended my immaturity at the time and didn't hold it against me that I was challenging the strength of her generation.  Maybe she DID agree with me.  Who knows?  All I know is that she disarmed me with her understanding.  And that, as they say, was that.)

At the very end of my career, I was teaching 8th grade.  By this time, I was far removed from the junior high mentality.  I still related to them, but it became harder and harder for them to relate to me. They simply could not imagine life without color televisions with remote controls, cell phones, video games, computers, and social media.  One day, I made a reference to a Beatles song and got blank faces in return.  I loved my students and I think they liked me because they knew I cared about them, but we were no longer connecting on a level that was comfortable for me.  In short, I was a dinosaur in a world of electronics.  And there were situations at home that I could help by being retired.   I still could make literature come alive for my students, and I still could illustrate some life lessons for them, but it began to seem more like Grandma talking than someone they would actually listen to. Financially, retiring wasn't the best option for me at the time, but I did it.  I'm not sorry that I did. Time for the younger folk to take up the baton and run with it.

Now, I keep track of my former students on Facebook.  Many of them are parents in their own right, and the last ones are finishing up college.  As they mature, I am beginning to see cracks in their own armor that sound more like me than they!  The generation gap will always happen, in time.  It is my hope, however, that each generation learns from the last.  We all have something to teach.  The question becomes:  is anyone listening??