Mind the Gap

The other evening in the pub, about ten of us were sitting round, the majority of us parents of children in their late teens or early twenties.  Comfortably over our beer or J2O (driving) or white wine (just letting the side down, really), we agreed that there was less difference between ourselves and our children’s generation than there had been between us and our parents’ generation.

We reached a consensus on that.

But then, our children weren’t there. 

From a material culture point of view, the thesis stands:  Perran clacks through my CD collection more often than I do, and Carenza now rocks the few surviving frocks in which I once painted the town red.  Likewise, Pascoe has been sighted at parties wearing my kaftan which a friend brought me back from Syria in better days.

On the other hand, the current range of relationships now on offer bemuses me.  If somebody had been my “Friend with Benefits”, it would probably have meant a purely platonic relationship in which he allowed me access to his toaster, possibly his electric food mixer. 

When my children raise LGBT issues, I have to get past my confusion with BLT – a kind of sandwich, and certainly not the appropriate mental image.  Hopefully, they think the long silence is because I’m considering their point deeply.

So if you’re reading this, and you know of a point where communication between the generations is difficult, please do email me and let me know.