I think our kids think that we ARE old. My mom had all three us kids by the time she was 21 and I remember growing up thinking she was old. Not because she looked it, but because she would discipline us by saying things like, "I am 30 years old . . . I am 31 years old . . . I am 32 years old and so on. Just by the context she would use that in, I felt that must have meant that she was old and knew what she was talking about. My mom stayed home with us until she divorced my dad when I was 12. She taught us the value of hard work and honesty. She was strict and I love her for that.
Now that I'm an adult myself, she seems very young to me. She will be 51 next month and you would not know it! She is one of the most beautiful people I know. Most people who meet her think she is in her 30s. She became a nurse about 15 years ago and I think it keeps her young because she's passionate about what she does.
My dad is 55 and I remember also thinking that he was old when we were growing up. He was probably too strict--but maybe that wasn't such a bad thing. I think I turned out alright. We worked very hard. We chopped and hauled our own wood to heat a five story (yes five story) farm house. We tended a one-acre garden, including tilling, picking rock, planting, weeding, picking and canning. My sister and I were in charge of all of the laundry. My dad went on yearly hunting trips to stock the chest freezer with meat like elk and carribou. We basically "lived off of the land". There was not much time for play.
My dad does seem old to me now. He lost both of his parents about two years ago, and it seems to have taken so much out of him. He is retiring this year and moving to Alaska.
My parents didn't play with us or talk to us much growing up. My kids seem to need that attention on a daily basis. I feel that many kids of this generation will lack a lot of the skills needed to funtion as adults. Will they know how to budget, cook, clean, balance a checkbook or even write a check? Then again, will they have to with dining out and on-line banking?
I'm not sure how music plays a role in the generation gap, but I'm not saying it doesn't. I know it has been said before, but the thing I love so much about this forum is the fact that people of all ages seem to connect with Joe's music. I'm just waiting for my kids to get on board.
"There is nothing to it. You only have to hit the right notes at the right time and the instrument plays itself."---Johann Sebastian Bach