"We hear a great deal about the rudeness of the ris-
ing generation. I am an oldster myself and might be
expected to take the oldsters' side, but in fact I have
been far more impressed by the bad manners of par-
ents to children than by those of children to parents.
Who has not been the embarrassed guest at family
meals where the father or mother treated their
grown-up offspring with an incivility which, offered
to any other young people, would simply have termi-
nated the acquaintance? Dogmatic assertions on mat-
ters which the children understand and their elders
don't, ruthless interruptions, flat contradictions,
ridicule of things the young take seriously some-
times of their religion insulting references to their
friends, all provide an easy answer to the question
"Why are they always out? Why do they like every
house better than their home?" Who does not prefer
civility to barbarism?"

Other people say that their parents are the same way whenever there’s bad news from whatever patch of dirt they came from, but being common still doesn’t mean it makes any sense. After all, it was twenty years ago, and if the adults were going to get so upset about having everything smashed up, they shouldn’t have had a war or tolerated AIDS for so long that they gave it the chance to turn into mutAIDS, or allowed the climate disequilibration to get so far out of hand. Honestly, they remind me of the three-year-olds in the nursery, smashing things to bits and then crying because they’re broken. I certainly hope I’m not that kind of a moron when I’m that old.

People of my age group are so angry, Why are we in the same place? We’ve actually lost some of the progress.

Advice I would give to my younger self? I don’t know that I would really give her advice. She was a little too angry to take advice. I’d probably just get in a fight with her. I’m very thankful for it [childhood]. Of course, when I deal with things in therapy and whatnot, therapy has helped me a lot to figure my own shit out. It’s really helped me understand and not be so angry in life. I think I always felt like I didn’t necessarily have a voice, the way I grew up. It was like everyone else’s voice was on me.

Grown-ups desperately need to feel safe, and then they project onto the kids. But what none of us seem to realize is how smart kids are. They don’t like what we write for them, what we dish up for them, because it’s vapid, so they’ll go for the hard words, they’ll go for the hard concepts, they’ll go for the stuff where they can learn something. Not didactic things, but passionate things.

I think it's odd that grown-ups quarrel so easily and so often and about such petty matters. Up to now I always thought bickering was just something children did and that they outgrew it.

"DEAR MISS MANNERS:
I a tired of being treated like a child. My father says it's because I am a child — I am twelve-and-a-half years old — but it still isn't fair. If I go into a store to buy something, nobody pays any attention to me, or if they do, it's to say, "Leave that alone," "Don't touch that," although I haven't done anything. My money is as good as anybody's, but because I am younger, they feel they can be mean to me. It happens to me at home, too. My mother's friend who comes over after dinner sometimes, who doesn't have any children of her own and doesn't know what's what, likes to say to me, "Shouldn't you be in bed by now,dear?" when she doesn't even know what my bedtime is supposed to be. Is there any way I can make these people stop?

GENTLE READER:
Growing up is the best revenge."

The truth is that it is our attitude towards children that is right, and our attitude towards grown-up people that is wrong. Our attitude towards our equals in age consists in a servile solemnity, overlying a considerable degree of indifference or disdain. Our attitude towards children consists in a condescending indulgence, overlying an unfathomable respect.

Talking to the parents of older kids was helpful for me, since the parents of kids the same age as yours won't admit how horrible their children are. ... you can either practice being right or practice being kind. Screaming in the car helped. [p. 94]

I am 25 years old, I have no idea why parents don't understand their children. But I think it's a dog biting its own tail: older people tend to devalue younger people simply because they have a ‘background’ that the young people are creating instead. All new generations are seen as listless and less enterprising, it has always been like that. Or has it?

Strenuously competitive parents may indeed produce high-achieving grownups, but it’s in the nature of things that high-achieving adults are likely to become frustrated and embittered old people, once the rug is pulled out from under their occupation.

You're dead if you aim only for kids. Adults are only kids grown up, anyway

Don’t let it make you bitter. Try to understand. Try to understand. The world’s already bitter enough, we got to try to be better than the world.

Angry people are not always wise.