I remember my dad saying this to my brother and I, several times when we were young.
It was when he asked or told us to do something that we didn't want to do and then we pushed back and said, “well you do it”, and then he would say, well, you have to do what I say, not what I do. What he was actually saying was, please will you learn from my mistakes. Difficult, isn't it, to convince people and other generations that you do actually understand the struggles and the pain that they're going through and that if they would just listen to you and the experience that you have, they might not stumble through the same mistakes that you've made, or at least might make less mistakes.
Youth never listens to experience.
It's why both groups get enormously frustrated with each other.
A fascinating metaphor for this week, a friend of mine who I've known and worked with along in the industry for over 27 years. He was explaining to me that his son (who is now 16) told him the other day that he would never give a phone to his children until they were at least 18.
This is a 16-year-old who has a phone and spends too much time on it.
I wonder how many of these kids would agree. I guess they're gonna have another round with their kids of do what I say, not what I do.
So, as they say, they're not gonna give a phone to their kids. The kids are gonna tell them that they're on their phone too much and they're gonna say.
“Please don't make the mistakes that I made”
We f£*ked up here pretty bad with the kids, didn't we?
I hope they can fix it because it is a serious problem.
Blog Post Number - 4232
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