Generation gap (noun); a difference of attitudes between people of different generations, leading to a lack of understanding.
It’s natural that two people of different major age groups have a difference in their ways, whether it be their spirit, aptitude, reaction, attitude, calm and almost every aspect of one’s personality. There weren’t enough of repercussions of the generation gap as serious as are nowadays, so this term was never of as much importance as it’s of today.
Despite the fact that we lag behind a generation or two from the western world when it comes to social life, individualism and individual autonomy, nowadays the youth are exposed to the kind of life style the people in the west practice, through movies, songs, books, media and all. There is a major cultural exchange underway. These sources offer a great insight to the western world, and the thoughts of individual’s freedom of deciding his own future, the liberty to do whatever one feels like to do, to live independently without any interference from elders and family and many other liberties which aren’t prevalent in majority of the South Asian societies, find a great sense of acceptance amongst the youth and affect their thoughts and attitude majorly.
Once these thoughts get instilled in the mind of young people, they are excited to redeem the same for them from their backgrounds as well, now a point worth mentioning is that most of the people in their families are not familiar with these thoughts at par and are hence reactive. This is the point where the problem really starts.
When people start redeeming these liberties in their real lives, they are reacted to, from their elders and parents. Sometimes things as simple as coming home late, frequent hangouts with friends (especially in the case of girls), movies and all, are not accepted by the majority of our societies, but the exposure to western ways makes the younger section rebellious and they are hell bent to get what they might call their right. It’s no surprise that arguments and quarrels are very much often in families nowadays due to this reason and lack of understanding is the outcome of this problem, thus rift of generation gap keeps widening.
But in actual the truth is that we the younger lot are being impatient and judgemental, we must reckon the fact that may be our families are well educated and well off but they lack the exposure to these thoughts and they remain by and largely alien to them. The matured generation has a lot of cultural influence over them and they wish to keep their offsprings intact with their culture. When they witness a change in their children they are mostly reactive to it, they have a reason for their worry, according to their point of view these things aren’t righteous and can have ill effects and the truth is that they care for their children and want the best for them. This conflict in thoughts is a serious matter of concern.
Both the Parents and Children are right in their minds but do not take initiative to look beyond each other’s narrative and pertinently press on their own views and this leads to consequences such as frequent quarrels, families breaking up and all other family problems.
As being a teenager it’s easy to relate to the younger lot and I definitely have a say in this matter. We actually are trying to skip a generation i.e.” we are asking our parents for what our coming generation should ask us for “, we are just being impatient which actually is quite natural in this age. It won’t be wrong to say that we’re up to “The Generation Jump”.
The only way out of this mess is that, we must give a shot at understanding our parents better and also on the part of parents steps must be initiated to understand youth’s views and ideas. More of understanding between the elders and the young will decrease the possibility of the situation of generation jump. An honest try on the part of both Parents and children can alone stop this problem from ruining their warm relations and if either of both fails to do so, the problem won’t solve but only worsen. The generation matured is more expected to adjust as they are wise enough and have the edge of age superiority, though social evolution will take its due course, but they must educate themselves with more liberal and free ideas so that their flexibility can inspire the younger lot to get flexible as well.