▶ Your Answer :
Some people may agree with the statement that parents nowadays do not understand their children as much as their parents did 50 years ago, while others do not. The answer to this question can be different depending on the individual’s perspectives. However, as far as I am concerned, I disagree with the statement for two major reasons as follows.
First off, parents nowadays are trying to be communicative with their children than their parents did in the past, so it is easier for parents in current generation to understand their children. In current society, being communicative parents is recommended as an effective way of education, so many parents are trying to have a conversation with their children and understand them. In contrast, being strict and authoritarian parents was the main stream when it comes to education method in the past. To take my parent’s story for example, my father often tell me the story about how scary his parents were in the past. In the past, the relationship between parents and children was highly-hierarchical and even eye-contact with one’s parents was regarded as impolite manner from the traditional perspective in Korea. In this atmosphere, my father was afraid of his parents and had difficulty in having a conversation with them. On the other hand, my parents are friendly to me and do not care about traditional hierarchical manner so much. Therefore, I believe that parents living in 50 years ago did not understand their children as much as parents nowadays do.
Furthermore, it became easier for parents in current society to pay attention to their children as the number of children in a family is smaller than that of the past. In my grandparent’s generation, it was normal for them to have over five children, but nowadays the average number of children in one family is from one to three at best. In this regard, parents nowadays are likely to focus on their children and this kind of environment help parents and children get close as they have more time to spend together. For example, my grandmother told me she was too busy to take care of eight children in the past, so she had trouble in paying attention to all of them. In contrast, my mother is able to focus on only for me and we can spend a lot of time to understand each other since I am an only child.
In conclusion, for the reasons I stated above, I am firmly convinced that parents nowadays understand their children better than their parents did 50 years ago.
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