Apples and trees

Anna Bahney, "High School Heroes: Mom and Dad," The New York Times, 16 May 2004.[U]nlike the chasm that separated baby boom parents from their parents, these teenagers' tastes in clothes and music, and many of their political and social beliefs, dovetail with those of their parents.

Like Juan Sanchez's article on the "Millennials," this article also cites Millennials Rising. I suspect that, like most tries at the generation game, this book is filled with self-contradictory generalizations but must admit that I haven't read it because I don't want to encourage cod sociology with my own coin. But of course I have no business judging anyone's ideas and work secondhand so let's hope I'm accepted into a graduate school with a good library, eh?

The sample examined in this article isn't exactly statistical, but nonetheless implies that my assumption of the inherently rebellious nature of youth is incorrect.

[Dr. Frank Furstenberg, a professor of sociology at the University of Pennsylvania and the chairman of a research group examining transitions to adulthood] said there was nothing preprogrammed about teenage rebellion. "The thinking that adolescents rebel as they seek more autonomy and push off from their families is a peculiarly well-developed idea in American society," he said. But this phenomenon is at least partly a product of American culture, not inbred.

Hey, I'm an open-minded guy willing to entertain the possibility that I'm wrong if there's contradictory evidence.

Maybe the "old-fashioned" values from before the 60s are the thesis, the permissive liberal values of the decades since then the antithesis, and what we're starting to seeing now the synthesis.

Errm, maybe.