A New Generation Gap

Contributing Writer: Pierangela Shaw (my inspiration, my mentor, my friend...my mother)

I think us baby boomers were cheated with a New Generation Gap.

We revolutionized, survived and came out triumphant from what we knew as the Generation Gap with our parents. This Gap we recognized as their rigidness through rules, codes and pilgrim-like submission of their will, that didn’t let them be themselves. We wanted better for everyone and the generations to come. We understood life and were openly determined to celebrate it. We surrounded ourselves with music and colors and nature, and found the happiness we were looking for. Our dress flowed with our hair in the wind, and beads marked our individuality with meaning. We understood the soul and the spirit, and drew up perfect formulas for happiness for every step in life...many today continue to lead in the right direction. Make no mistake, in our skin, we are all still flower children.

Some of the older baby boomers were able to ‘surf’ it OK to the end. Some picked up the best of their parents’ heritage, and with love, peace and freedom maintained the high standard protests in their lives and 8 hour work days; mixing both.

Some even had earth-conscientious babies that battled anything that threatened humanity; even to the point of annoyance. Possibly, mostly late bloomers bred today’s corrupt and violent; they missed the learnings and rebelled with their own distorted culture; not realizing there was nowhere better to be.

I believe new babies receive the aid of their well formed peers and ‘baby boomer grandparents’, that still have it right and continue to show the way.

Undoubtedly, we all thought the Generation Gap was a thing of the past, unquestionably defeated and gone; making the generations forever opened to our understanding.

But our children came with a New Generation Gap; technology in their pockets, bedrooms and backpacks, which we would control if we knew how. That was one element we did not have to figure out, and it caught us by surprise.

Baby boomers with adolescent babies; how are you managing? What is enough? How do you interrupt? How do you isolate? How much should you take away? How much away is it ever,when you can’t put them in a crystal box? When we didn’t want to? Is that perfect happiness we learned to teach and share - the meaning of two fingers that say ‘peace’ without a sound - dead and dying to our children?

How perverse is our adolescent becoming through violent-video-games already accepted as normal, all-hour cell phone calls to strangers, chatting/surfing incessantly through the web with no filter for evil..deafness through cables in their ears, headaches of day long lit monitors, thumb and wrist deformities, infections as they try different color contacts for their eyes(those eyes we preached showed the beauty of our souls), and indelible markings of emotional states of mind in ink and metal.

I still battle this new age threat with my virtual spears, but in understanding, try to cross successfully this tight rope....faith can make it easier... and we trust....because we swore to trust life.... that our children will be better parents by closing this New Generation Gap, through their know-how and experience, with their own children.