Tradition and the Generation Gap

Advice columns and other popular parenting resources may not agree about much, but on one point they are firm: Your parents are hopelessly outdated and you will disagree with them about how you should raise your child.

This idea is so firmly entrenched in the minds of popular culture, that it seems unimaginable that it was ever not this way. But, believe it or not, the “generation gap”–which is now so great and seems to be still widening at an incredible pace–once was almost imperceptible.

Once upon a time in a land not so far away, people had lots of kids. The older children observed how their parents parented–and had “hands on” training while taking care of their younger siblings. The older children married and had children of their own in their late teens or twenties. They parented their children as they had been trained–in a manner very similar to how their parents had parented.

The younger children in the big family didn’t have little siblings to practice on–but their older siblings lived nearby with their own children. So the younger children of the first generation grew up observing how their older brothers and sisters parented–and helping their older siblings with their young nieces and nephews. The younger children of the first generation learned the same parenting techniques their own parents had used for them, only this time at the hand of their older siblings. Thus parenting practices were transmitted from generation to generation.

Compare that to today, when most of the experience young adults have had with children is from doing a bit of babysitting while they were teens. When they start their own families, the only experience they have is from babysitting someone else’s children–which anyone could tell you is a far cry from parenting one’s own. With no other frame of reference, these young parents rely on the advice of their peers, or of the “experts” for developing their parenting techniques. Thus every generation reinvents the wheel–learning from scratch how to raise their children, making up the rules as they go along, certain of nothing except the “conventional wisdom” that their parents’ parenting was necessarily wrong.

Another area in which I have noted the generation gap is weddings. Have you ever noticed that every generation has its own “traditional wedding”? –And that somehow each generation’s “traditional wedding” looks completely different than that of the preceding generation?

Most people today only start attending wedding or being involved in weddings when their peers marry. Their peer’s weddings and those that they have seen in movies or in bridal magazines are what inform their knowledge of wedding “traditions.” As such, nothing remains “traditional” unless it is profitable to the wedding industry.

As the older child of one of the older children of a large family, I grew up going to weddings–the weddings of my aunts and uncles. I learned what a “traditional” wedding looks like for my family. And let me tell you one thing–it doesn’t look a thing like what passes as a “traditional” wedding today. Sure there’s a white dress and a church ceremony–but that’s where the commonality ends.

In my family, a traditional wedding means a church ceremony–generally using a liturgy. It means everyone in the family has a part to play–although “bridesmaid” and “groomsman” may not be the part. While the closest sibling or best friend may stand up for the bride or groom, the real “wedding party” consists of the cake cutters, the gift carriers, the flower pinner, the guest book attendant, the punch pourers, and on. Each member of the family has a corsage or boutonniere identifying them as part of the party. The whole family takes pictures together before the ceremony–even though that means the groom sees the bride before the ceremony.

A traditional wedding in my family means a reception directly following the ceremony, in the church fellowship hall. The meal is set up buffet-style and consists of trays of bread, deli meats and cheeses, and other fixings that people can make their own sandwiches from, salads made by the aunts, and cake and punch, homemade cream cheese mints and nuts.

A traditional wedding in my family means that the men (my uncles and any of the groomsmen) gather together the children to go out and decorate the car.

The generation gap has grown as people have fewer and fewer children and wait longer and longer before getting married. Without siblings with which to interact, they learn to rely on their age-segregated peer group. Then, when they start making these monumental life choices, they rely upon their peers and the “experts” to inform their decisions. It’s too late for the parents to transmit their wisdom. Since the children have never seen, learned, nor practiced this wisdom, it all seems hopelessly outdated. The new tradition has become no tradition–starting over with each new generation instead.

I, for one, intend to break with the new-fangled tradition: I’m going to do it like my parents did. ‘Cause I’ve seen how they did it–and it works pretty well!