福建师范大学外国语学院2001级1班 叶雅观

Accounts of misunderstandings between children and their parents can date back as far as recorded history. Nowadays, parent-children relationship still remains a problem, and sometimes is even worsening. Children often complain that their parents are out of touch of the modern ways of life and are dominant and conservational. On the other hand, it is natural for parents to criticize their children for the radical and irresponsible ways to cope with things. The generation gap seems unbridgeable and will exist for quite a long time.

First of all, the misunderstandings can be ascribed to biological factors. The parent-adolescent conflict is more common and more intense during adolescence than during any other period of time. They may squabble about even some trivial things, such as dating friends, making hairstyles, wearing strange clothes, listening to blaring music. The children in adolescence are very sensitive to new things and so willing to take venture that they are more likely to accept new things. By contrast, their parents are confined by the traditional ways and experience and become conservational, especially those who are undergoing the menopause and easy to be irritated in particular. It turns out that their children rebel against their guidance which may be accepted by children if it is intelligently offered. Therefore, they see things in different perspectives.

Another cause resulting in the generation gap is that information reaches the children through a variety of informers. Children would like to communicate with their peers more frankly and frequently than with their parents. In addition to peers, the advanced information network and public media like televisions, radios and magazines replace the parents and teachers to be the main resources that impart knowledge and concept, which may be quite different from those of their parents.

Third, the social environment has something to do with the gap. It respects the independence of children and gives the children more freedom to handling their affairs. Shengzheng has invalidated the rights of parents to read their children’s diaries. Some parents are opposed to it by arguing for them to educate their descendants. The society encourages consummation now, while the parents who had suffered during the three years’ starvation put an emphasis on the practicalities. So they don’t approve the consuming values of their children. With the policies of reform and opening our country to the outside world, a growing number of foreign things pour in. The impact on parents and children is so different that their gap seems more unbridgeable.

To sum up, we still have to live in a world where generation gap is common.