These past weeks, I had been observing the youngs and the olds. The parents and the teenagers. When one is a blogger like me, we tend to notice things that we normally will have not given second thoughts. Sitting there quietly and watch how others parents and children interact, I cooked up blog posts after blog posts in my mind.
I would say that I don’t have a problem with this annoying communication breakdown factor between parent and child called generation gap because……my mom was a very cincai (easy going) mom and I was a very independent kid who wouldn’t take no for an answer. And I didn’t do too badly either, right? I was the school head prefect, got myself a job right after SPM, married a nice man and have kids. Just like what every Mary, Jane and Lulu does.
However, I notice how some parents can be so damn suffocating in the way they talked to their kids. Like dictating what clothes they wear. What music to listen to. Yadda yadda yadda. Blah blah blah. You know…the parents and the children are like from two different worlds? There was one who told me she was having fights with the son because …well, I didn’t ask why, of course. I mean, the son is like 30 years old, dude!
So, I took a closer look at some of the elderly women and I notice that some of them are so cool in their outlook and some are those you just want to stay away from. They don’t tell you right in the face what you should do or say. They get excited listening to things foreign to them. They ask questions. When I say elderly, I mean women who are old enough to be my mother, that kinda age. These women exude vitality and exuberance.
My conclusion is generation gaps shouldn’t exist if the parents will stop stagnating in their ‘When I was your age’ limbo and start to grow young again with the kids as they grow up. Auntie S and Kat (waves to Kat from my church) are two of such women whom I want to emulate. One is in her 80s and one in her 60s. Yet, they are women who enjoy live and have lots of things to talk.
This is in contrast to some of the younger moms with teenagers who are always dictating to their children what to do and the worst is they don’t stop there. They will even tell the people around them how to bring up others’ kids. Duh.
So, are you the parent? What’s your take? Whose fault is it?
And if you are the kid, psssttt…it is your parent’s fault, right?
i go through the same thing everyday with my parents even though i am way beyond the difficult twenties. i have a very domineering mother who wants to meddle in every aspect of my life and likes to give her opinion on everything even though not asked to. she is a control freak who just cannot stand the idea of things being done any other way except hers. however she is my mother and i was never given a choice!
Here is my principal : Respect and listen the elders, but you don’t need to follow everything they say 😉
my mum used to be all Shih Huang Ti-like but now we are best friends.
funny how things can turn out actually
You know, there are many sides to this.
I feel that the older generation (as in granny generation) are much more relaxed because they do not have to worry about disciplining their children-that’s completely left to the mommy/daddy generation. Hence, they have nothing else to do but to pamper their grandchildren and take their crap with with ‘energy and vibrance’. How many grandparents are actually strict with their grandchildren? countable!
So I don’t think it’s wise or fair to compare the relationships of the two different generations with the kids.
Seriously, raising kids these days can be a nightmare…
Trust me, I know…I come from a place where teens have orgy parties, dress up like sluts and have stripteases! Best part is, their parents have absolutely no inkling whatsoever..
anucia – It is the ‘no inkling’ I am talking about. Somewhere along the way, the parents have stopped growing. They have lost touch with the challenges and the threats. There are parents here who have no inkling about pedophiles, no ideas about what their kids can download from the net, no ideas about drugs, same sex relationshp etc etc no ideas about anything but “my son is so clever! he is stucked to the computer all day’ idea. It is this generation gap that cause all these problems.
Rye-Urn – Hehehe, God’s grace, I believe.
moo_t – Like which woman to marry, for e.g. Hehehe.
hellfried – It is tough being mom. If we are too easygoing, we worried if the kids will turn out ok. If we are too strict, the kids will do things behind our back.
My mom’s cool, although sometimes she really b*tch*s bout things that are really trivial?? But…that’s what women do la..so…haha not much problem for me!
It’s my strong belief that skeletons are best left to live in their closets forever. But then, hoh…. some mothers just relish at unleashing them at their will. Kinda blackmail liddat. Blardy turnoff.
When I was in Primary and Secondary school, it was always ‘threatened at cane-point’ for my brother and me. All the absurd unwritten rules were set eg. no TV on weekdays, be home by 10pm, no handphone, no dating, etc. But I lived through that. They were more linient when I entered Form Six. Increased freedom, pocket money and curfew time by 1 hour
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But now, my parents are my best friends. They let me do what I wish because they trust me. When I get home once in a while, mum always tell people that “my daughter is so useless, she is stucked to the computer all day” Hahaha!
So, in a nutshell, generation gap is created by the parents themselves because they discipline their kids military way aka their parents’ way. Hello, this era is different from your era and kids nowadays think and are exposed to things different from your good ol’ days. Teenagers get rebellious because they were suffocated. I was there before. So, parents, don’t start growing older. You are supposed to grow together with the kids. For me, the best parents can be is their children’s best friends to whom they can rely on all the time.
My mum always refer to people “back home” ( i.e. Malaysia) the way she complains and tells us off its like Malaysia is some kind of Paradise on Earth. ( no crime , no sex maniacs, all the kids very obedient wan never argue back, always do everything their parents tell them…..)****roll eyes***