When I Was Your Age

We've all been there, that all too familiar gathering with our grandparents, aunts and uncles, or perhaps your parents coworkers. In fact, you may have even had this experience with your own parents. The frequency with which we hear the phrase, "When I was your age..." nearly haunts us when we look back on the details of these conversations, as we question wether these adults even enjoy A. the world as it is now and B. their lives as they are now. We all swear to ourselves that no matter what those words will never pass our lips.

However, I for one can say that as a twenty year old, they have already passed mine. There are two varieties of conversations that young people participate in where we sound just as ridiculous as these people we set out not to be. The first is when we reflect on the glory days. By glory days I am referring to elementary, middle, and high school when our days were filled with swing sets, school dances, Ferbies, Giga Pets, Disney princess movies, riding our bikes, etc. Every time we recollect on how awesome those days were as opposed to our papers, etc of the here and now, we might as well be those old folks. Don't get me wrong, there is probably nothing I love more than pulling out the middle school yearbooks and discussing with my best friend for hours upon hours how great being twelve years old was, but how is it fair for us to judge to old folks for telling us their memories when we love to recollect on ours. The second conversation occurs every time we discuss with younger children about how much things have changed, or tell them not to complain about how bad their cell phones are because we didn't have them at their age, or how we had to read so much more in elementary school then they did because they are using the computers more often. In these chats we are basically saying, "When I was your age I had to walk to school in the snow, uphill both ways," which is exactly what we hate to hear when we are trying to prove a point to our parents about how difficult our life is.

The next time you are in one of those situations you find obnoxious or annoying because perhaps what the older person is telling you might not quite apply to your situation or might just be uninteresting, try to engage yourself in the conversation because we can definitely learn from those who have come before us. The circle of life is unavoidable, we are already seeing it in our interactions with our younger siblings, our conceptions about the next generation, and in our reactions to such icons as Justin Bieber and Hannah Montana so it's best to embrace the inevitability.