Generation Gap

When I was young, I had the firepower and the arrogance to ignore the advice of my parents. I believed that parents had become pessimists by years. They had seen a little too many colors of life, and turned a recluse. They seemed to irritate me - always repeating their talk as if truth and experience were their bastion. I would always feel irritated that my parents never gave me a chance to speak my concerns and whenever I forced them to hear my opinions they would laugh and ignore. The result was that I stopped caring for their advice whether or not it was sincere or practical.
As years flew by and I entered forties, I realized the golden truth in my parents saying. They were gone by now and I missed them badly. I wanted to be scolded and I repented having taunted them for their slow demeanor and practical submission to reality. Since they were gone, I was left free to advice my children. I worked harder to advice them - nearly everything, which I had heard from my parents but which I did not implement myself would be part of my lectures. When my children would not listen to me, I would get irritated - more so at the fact that they are going to suffer my way. This thought would suffocate me. I would then try to force change on them and perhaps turned more of a dictator. I found my children running away from me and today I am pained when they talk to strangers and silently ridicule me.
If only now aged and ignored, I could travel back to the days of my youth, I would realize what a generation gap means. For each generation, it is important to explore life in its own way. No matter what suggestions or advice is forced, teenage and youth is meant to be its own airplane. The only way this bubbly-phase of life listens is by becoming a friend, by letting them have a feel that while their excitement and ideas are valid there may be many more ways to complete a task. Without advising, a cooperative involvement goes a long way in strengthening relationships. Parents who could be a friend to children invariably find parenthood easy. They also don't have to worry about generation gap!