TOEFL Essay: Generational Differences
Created by Jeenn Lee Hsien
谢振礼海外投稿
>Every generation of people is different in important ways. How is your generation different from your parents' generation? Use specific reasons and examples to explain your answer.
Generational differences have always happened throughout history but some differences have come more rapidly and widely in the modern era because in part of technological and social changes. There are obvious differences between generations with respects to such matters as musical tastes, fashion trends, educational systems, cultures, lifestyles, politics and even attitudes toward sexual activities. It is particularly interesting to compare our generation with our parents' generation in subjects related to work and family.
Let's begin with the generation X as our generation, coming after the generation "baby boomers." The mainstream Xers are mostly not as workaholic as their parents when younger. The reduced number of working hours is just one example. While the boomers are good team players and love the social interaction at work, their offspring's are more skeptical, stressing personal merits instead of antiquity. Unlike their previous generation, however, the younger generation is more inclined to change jobs or have parallel careers, if only for financial reasons. On the other hand, they demand more time for themselves, their families and friends. Boomers are relatively more conservative in comparison with their more liberal sons and daughters who are looking for more work-life balance.
Along with the reduced working time, the size of family has gradually been reduced, one-child or two-child program becoming more common. It used to be larger families among boomers. Our generation allows formal marriages and co-habitations to exist side by side. An increasing percentage of divorces and separations have appeared in our generation than in our parents' generation. More young women work and parenting has become a problem of the family. Teen-age pregnancy without a ring is no longer a scandal as was in our parents' generation. Pre-marital sex was considered dirty when air and water were cleaner in our parents' generation, and in the generations before them.
Our parents' generation, in particular, has a complaint to make. They say when they were younger, there was no respect for youth. Now that they are old, there is not respect for age. If this could be justified, what would become of our children's generation. The millennial will have little patience. The new reality in generational differences would certainly surprise our parents' generation, let alone the generation before them, the era of "veterans".
