For a while the generation gap was the size of the Grand Canyon. My parents listened to Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire, women stayed at home and ironed the sheets and pillowcases, men kept one job all their lives. My father worked for the Commonwealth Bank for 48 years.
But the kids my age listened to the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, wore jeans, got into drugs, were serious about being creative and achieving individual freedom.
This is a massive generalisation, but it was true for many people. Most of it was true for me, except that the only drugs I’ve taken are Panadol, Diet Coke and the occasional bottle of wine.
Nowadays parents and their children tend to like the same music, talk the same language, get involved in each other’s lives.
Let’s not get too carried away though. The fact is that there’s still a big generation gap.
Some of the biggest differences are over subjects like money, drugs, schoolwork, sex and relationships with girls, curfews, household jobs, friends who your parents don’t like.
Adults have set up a tough world for teenagers and are often the first to complain that the teenagers aren’t grateful. In fact they can be furious when anyone points out how difficult that world is.
There are in fact not many ways in which today’s teenagers have it better than their parents or grandparents. Certainly they own more stuff than any other generation of young people in the history of the world. But that’s not necessarily a good thing.
Many of them do get more care and attention from their parents, though that’s not necessarily a good thing either. It’s all a question of balance. Parents who don’t give a damn about their kids have always been bad parents. But parents who smother their children, try to control their every action, try to make them into someone they’re not, may be even worse.
Children in that second kind of family have the added problem that they’re trained to feel guilty if they criticise or seem ungrateful. At least in the first kind of family the children may feel free to express their rage and grief. In the second type the rage and grief will be there but may be hard to express.
Fathers these days are still trying to find a role for themselves. There have always been lots of good fathers, deeply and lovingly involved with their children. But the Anglo culture of the last 50 years didn’t support them. A British soldier in 1941 described in the book Popski’s Private Army how he got ready to join the army. He said he took his two daughters to a boarding school in South Africa, booked them in and, in his own words, ‘dismissed them from my mind for the next few years’. He didn’t seem bothered by this.
The culture in those times praised men who earned money for their families and supported them in a warm, secure home, so that they weren’t hungry or cold or under-clothed or frightened. There was little recognition of men’s role in nurturing. Fathers were more likely to shake their sons’ hands than hug them.
‘He was a good provider’ was a common compliment a widow would pay to her husband after he died.
At least nowadays the culture is more likely to support fathers who show that they care, but there are still plenty of fathers who shake hands rather than hug.
However one big improvement for young people is that they have access to more knowledge than previous generations. They live in a more open world, where things are discussed more. A book like this could not have been published a few decades ago.