Generation Gap

The gap between the old people and the young is called the generation gap. It is the difference in the attitude, priorities, and views among generations.
As to the different attitude of life, the people belonging to the old generation always wonder what has gone wrong with the new generation. They feel that during their time, young boys and girls were better behaved, more obedient and had greater respect for elders. Young people, on the other hand, feel that they are capable enough to learn on their own rather than lean heavily on the older generation for any guidance. Young people do not like to be spoon-fed by their elders.
The differences also appear in some other ways. For example, the way of entertainment. Our grandparents' generation never understood Elvis and the Beatles, frequently opposed to them, relating rock as "the devil's music". They did all they could to ban rock and contraceptives, mostly because they couldn't understand what was going on. Then came flower power and the hippie generation, who were smoking pot, protesting against Vietnam, taking acid and going to rock festivals, such as Woodstock. With it came the Sex Revolution and Women's lib. The seventies bring the

(3) Generation gap among Catholics(15)(16)(17)

There are several reasons for this phenomenon. One reason is that American-born students take education for granted, these students say, is because it¡¯s free. In many of the countries from which these students emigrated, schooling costs money. Even if they don't have to pay tuition, these students say, their families might have to pay for books, uniforms, or lunches. Another motivator is poverty. Once they get to the United States, the parents of immigrant children, even some who went to college in their home countries, are often forced to take low-paying jobs. Maria Gallon, a Colombian-born senior at International High says: ¡°"Right now, my mom is cleaning banks, and I'm helping her at night,¡± I think, ¡®What if I turn 37 and I'm still doing this?¡¯ It makes me realize, ¡®Maria, you do not want to do this for the rest of your life.¡¯¡± Education is a ¡°way out¡± of poverty of American society.

First, the young people feel that the present system of education has little link with the realities of life. It is not job-oriented. The result is that even after completing their schooling, they are not able to find any employment. They feel highly disillusioned.

Although it might seem a truism that people of different ages will have different opinions, the researchers found that Catholics' opinions are closely linked to their position in three distinct groups, or birth cohorts: people who came of the age before the Second Vatican Council of 1962-65; people coming of the age about that time; and people born after Vatican II. As we move from the older cohort to the younger cohort, traditional beliefs and practices decline.

Education was a ¡°way out¡± of poverty of American society.

Another problem is the discrimination. We have many kinds of discriminations, for example, race and some other serious ones. In the second part, I mentioned a kind of generation gap between the immigrants and the natives.