We were at my wife’s doctor appointment this afternoon. The nurse was taking her vitals and updating the information in her chart and making small talk. Then she uttered the phrase
“Kids these days are so (fill in the blank)”
She was saying how kids are rude and they are always on their phones and when they talk no one can understand what they are saying.
I just smiled. It’s funny watching young people turn into their parents.
I pointed out to her that when she was younger, her parent’s generation said the exact same things. She had her own language, and social code, and no one older than 18 understood it. I told her she was becoming her parents.
She had to agree. She doesn’t get the younger crowd, she doesn’t like their music, and she thinks they dress funny. She has reached the point of maturity that disconnects her from her youth and its follies. She has gained enough wisdom to maybe become wise enough to teach the young. (In one of the Thomas Covenant books by Stephen Donaldson he says “Life is well designed. Men and women grow old so someone will be wise enough to teach the young.”)
Of course, what she says isn’t anything new. It goes back a long way. Socrates is quoted as saying:
“The children now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise.”
He is also quoted as saying:
“Children nowadays are tyrants. They contradict their parents, gobble their food, and tyrannize their teachers.”
I suppose this is a universal threshold that must be breached in every life. Children come into the world a blank slate and must experience life, make mistakes, and hopefully learn from them. Would we be better off if we could take all the experience and the wisdom it brings, liquefy it, and have children chug it from a glass? Then they could start earlier in life with a leg up, making better decisions, and advancing everything instead of spending all that time learning. Maybe then the human race would advance overall.
Just something to ponder on your own journey to elder wisdom.
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