There’s always stories and glib quotes (“The difference between our music in the '60’s and today’s music is that our music was good”) about the “generation gap”. But what about you personally? What specific differences between you and your parents (or your children I suppose) make your generation gap really hit home?
My Dad grew up dirt poor in the sand hills of Oklahoma. The second youngest of 5 brothers. He was 15 years old before he and my grandparents got electricity.
Me? I was in the 6th grade before the town we were living in got . . . cable TV.
Well, I’ve seen pictures of my parents from the early 70’s, shortly after I was born (which was 1970)… My dad had some serious lamb-chop sideburns going on!
Having electronic stuff everywhere, and being completely comfortable with it. Almost all my activities, professional and recreational, involve computers or other electronic devices.
Of course, my future kids, unless they have a neo-Luddite religious conversion, will probably be wired up to an extent that makes me look like a caveman banging his rocks together.
The young-un’s amaze me with their easy familiarity with information and communications - I suspect that they would feel withdrawal pains if they lost the ability to instantly retreive all kinds of data and/or just chat with people who were, just a couple of decades ago, strange, exotic (and possibly dangerous) beings living in remote places few could ever imagine visiting.
In the mid-70’s, the local paper (the ONLY source for real coverage) in Gainsville, FL ran a story of a local’s woman’s 100th birthday (she lived about 20 miles up the road). The thing which struck me was that she had never been more than 20 miles from the place she was born (and that 20-mile jaunt had occurred during her childhood). Her big adventure in life was to see somewhere 20 miles away.
Now, folks consider it normal to chat with folks halfway around the world.
I am glad to see this (I’m hoping it will make it harder to promote hatred, let alone war), but am amazed.
I was once dealing with one of these Gen-X whizkids when the LAN died. He panicked, because he couldn’t find another employee’s phone number. I loaned him my hardcopy phone book. He was astounded that such things still existed. Hummmm…
They do, however, eat strange foodstuffs and ingest disgusting drugs. WE had MUCH better drugs
My mom grew up in a log cabin without electricity and indoor plumbing, my grandmother didn’t live in a place with indoor plumbing till she was almost eighty, and that was around fifteen years ago.
Hello Again…those are also called Generation Y, I think. Either way, I’m supposedly part of that generation, but share little of the values tagged on it. Must be cultural differences.
My grandparent was about 36 years old when he learned to drive a car. He wanted to be a neurosurgeon but was born and bred before anyone thought it was a good career choice.
Dad looks much better now than he did in the late 1970’s/early 1980’s. Mom learned to drive at 13 (illegally) when such things were less frowned than now. She and my aunt had to share a bed. Now siblings each have a bed for them, and possibly a room.
I was 5-6 years old when my parents finally got a color TV for home. They still don’t have cable TV.
My morning cartoons consisted of Looney Tunes, Merry Melodies, Care Bears, G-Force, He-Man, She-Ra, Transformers, etc. After that we saw El Chapulín Colorado or El chavo del ocho reruns.
I also learned a lot of children folk songs, sadly I’ve forgotten some of them.
My cousin, 10 years younger, had his first game boy when he was about 6. He doesn’t know the folk songs and since we rarely see each other I doubt I can pass them on.
My second cousins, on the other hand, I see much more often and their parents (my cousins) are more aware of passing on old stories and traditions. I teach those girls all the game I know and remember.
Records. That is, vinyl records. Those things you put on a turntable, and all the associated hassle like having to replace the needle every once in a while, and those velvety record washer things (Discwashers?). Although CDs came out when I was in high school, I didn’t have a player until my second year in college, so the bulk of my teenage music scene involved records. I’d buy a new one, bring it home, and immediately record it onto a metal 90 minute cassette tape. The record itself was then put back in it’s sleeve and the sleeve put in a protective plastic cover.
Nowadays, I’m doing good if my CDs get put back in their case and not used as drink coasters.
I knew this was a generation gap thing when a teenage girl was once amazed and awed that I was so “retro” and “cool” because I had a record collection.
Over the summer, my Nana wanted to learn how to use email on my Pop Pop’s laptop (he rarely uses it, but he keeps it since one of his sons got it for him). So I sat down and showed her how to use AOL and basically write emails. Then I let her have a try - and realized she didn’t know how to use a mouse. There’s a big difference between an 81-year-old woman who was a typical housewife in the '40s and '50s and a 19-year-old computer nerd. If I ever have kids, they’ll probably be so wired I’ll have to unplug them at night to get them to go to bed.
I also like to giggle at photos of my parents when they lived in Hawaii before I was born (1979-1982). My dad is also a computer nerd, but he wasn’t raised on the computer like I was. I noticed that up until around 1990 he always had frizzy hair, but in the past decade or so he’s actually been combing it, and he looks a lot “cleaner” at 47 than he did in his wedding picture when he was 24.
I’ve got an interesting twist on this. I’m 19, born in 1983. I’m also a car enthusiast. Most people would put those together to assume that I like souped-up Honda Civics, or maybe BMWs. In fact, my favorite cars are from the '70s and '80s, the era of wire wheel covers and vinyl tops. These types of cars are usually associated with old men, but I love them. I drive an '86 Pontiac Parisienne, complete with whitewalls and huge chrome bumpers. I’ve never met another car enthusiast of my age who likes the same types of cars. I guess I’m a 75-year-old in a 19-year-old’s body!
By “before I was born,” I mean pre-me, as in the time period from the big bang (or creation, if you’re into that) up until riiiiiight before my head popped out. My parents were married 4 years before I came along and took their sanity with me. However, my mom probably wouldn’t have enjoyed being in labor all those years, and by the time I was born I would be a pretty huge baby. Ouch.
Me vs my parents: The Vietnam war was just another page in a history book, no more meaningful to me than the Civil War.
Me vs “kids these days:” I didn’t have Touch-Tone phone service until the early 90’s, and I remember when I could dial anyone in my town just by dialing the last 5 digits of the phone number.
