Essay on GENERATION GAP for class 10
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Answer:
The generation gap is another of those characteristic features that set Homo sapiens apart from other animals. It is doubtful if ever the most intelligent of apes ever blamed its juniors for their wayward ways! Over the years people have tried to analyse it, explain it, understand it, even ignore it, but it remains, ready to confront each generation as it tries to formulate its own perspectives about life and living.
A dictionary defines ‘generation’ as “all persons born about the same time” and also as the “average time in which children are ready to replace their parents-about 30 years.” This definition in itself contains the seeds of the rift, chasm, cleft, call it what we will, that translates into the generation gap. Not only does it establish a definite group of contemporaries but it also categorically states that the said group will ‘replace’ an earlier group-and no one likes to be ‘replaced’! Hence the ensuing ‘gap’!
From this definition we come to the two aspects of the generation gap-the chronological and the psychological. The chronological gap between two generations is an irrefutable fact of life that stares us in the eye like adolescence and menopause. It has to happen, and happen it will. And given the mortality of humans it is but natural that since one must grow old and one day cease to be, there must be someone following ready to take over, to whom one can hand over the baton. It need not be replacement but inheritance, even if the inheritors do not follow in the predecessors footsteps but walk their own road.
The life and times of two generations cannot be identical or even similar, thanks to modern research, progress in science, faster and easier communications and even distasteful things like inflation and population explosion. All these ensure that the world we live in grows a new skin every few years. These changes in due course affect our thinking and influence our attitudes, expectations, behavioural patterns and values. These influences do, of course, work on humankind but they have the greatest impact on that section of society which is on the threshold of discovery-discovery of the self, of life and of living. For someone who has already measured swords with life a characteristic lifestyle is already in place. So such persons, used as they are to living on their own familiar terms, see no real need to change their habits every time a new product hits the market to make their lives that much more easy. A younger person would probably reach out for it in all eagerness.
In essence, therefore, the generation gap is a tug-o’war of change versus stability, new versus old, modern versus traditional. It does not have to become (and this is Important) a tug-o’-war of age versus youth. In fact, it need not take on the complexion of a confrontation at all. AsTherefore change is a must for society to survive, whether or not we accept it as part of God’s will. The new must replace the old to retain freshness in living. It need not mean that those used to an earlier lifestyle should sink. There is no ultimatum involved. Ideally, the best of the old and the new ought to be integrated for the true and smooth evolution of humankind. Unfortunately, this is easier said than done and each generation continues to feel threatened by the next, causing much heart-burn and tension and the generation gap takes the blame.
This friction is born out of the psychological factors influencing the generation gap. The generation gap can be observed in the smallest unit of society, the family, in the confrontation between parent and child. Although according to the dictionary definition children take 30 years before they are ready to replace their parents, signs of the eventual take-over become manifest much earlier. And what is true for the family holds good at all levels of society. One group’s enthusiasm for, and another’s resistance to, change is prevalent at all social strata and has a unifying effect among members of the group.