What do you think about the generation gap? Do the following phrases sound familiar to you? ‘She doesn’t get it.’; ‘I’m never going to be like her.’; ‘Things have changed.’; ‘We didn’t act like that.’; and the list goes on. I could say that my mom and I could not be more different, just as my daughter and I could not be more different; but are we? I could say that the times I grew up in were different than theirs; but was it really?
Let’s Investigate
My mother is 72 years of age, and she became a mother at 17 years old. She is calm and speaks softly; forgiving; easily wounded; self-denying; nonjudgmental; wise; not openly opinionated; steadfast and unshakable; a woman of longsuffering, faith and prayer; conservative in thought, practice and deed. My mother will search a matter out to her satisfaction, observe and keep silent. As a matter of fact, those attributes make her appear to be naïve to others; that perception is both deceptive and dangerous.
Currently 55 years of age, I became a mother at 20 years old. I do not speak loudly but do not consider myself “soft spoken. Talking is not my pass time and verbal communication is as stressful to me as people are. My physical expressions naturally convey my thoughts and feelings. I’m not easily a captive of persuasion. Compassionate, not easily wounded, and but for God’s intervention via rebuke forgiveness does not come easy. Punishment for staring and being nosy was not uncommon as a child. Perhaps we could call that observant and investigative. Conservative in practice and deed, but in thought I’m more libertarian in that we will all stand accountable before God. So, if you want to act a fool by, all means enjoy yourself.
My daughter is 35 years of age, and she became a mother at 19 years old. She is outwardly beautiful beyond measure, and like a chameleon she easily adapts to social environments as long as they do not revolve around Christian settings. Her intellectual ability to converse can cause even the highly educated wanting for a Thesaurus. She is investigative and observant to a degree but lacks wisdom. Her emotions vastly lean toward quick anger, or a heart so wounded that forgiveness becomes a series of hurdles on a winding obstacle course. She is over reactive; judgmental; acutely opinionated; short sighted; liberal but narrow minded. If you are one that she can tolerate she incredibly fun and pleasant to be around, kind and giving.
Reflection
While I dare not speak for all women, I would imagine that many of us at one point in our youth had the thought that our mothers just didn’t “get it”. However, is that true? Reflecting on the things above I can see that there are a couple of things in common that binds us. We each started motherhood at young ages, so our generational gap isn’t that wide. We are all strong women, but our level of faith or the lack thereof have shaped our perceptions. Perhaps personalities are a combination of what comes natural to us and our experiences.
Conclusion
So how do we bridge that gap to understand each other as women, mothers, daughters, sisters, cousins? How do we as women of all ages learn to honor, respect, and communicate, and learn from each other? The answer is so simple; we only need to look to what God has to say about it.
I would hope that you find the time to read the entire chapter of the scriptures provided above; they are thought provoking. I would encourage you to bind the scriptures to your memory. Meditate, learn, and them, understand them so they become useful arsenal the next time you battle on your knees for your family. From my observation the “generational gap” isn’t just a myth, but a battle of division that the enemy of God seeks to use so he can cause division among the family.