2017, June 1st is international Children’s Day.
That day, my out-of-the-nest flying birds happened to be back home. I happily said to them: “Today is Children’s Day so let’s celebrate!”
The little birds replied:“We are college students and no longer interested in children activities.”
Then, my favorite Children’s Day went on without any ceremony.
June 1st Children’s Day is a big holiday celebrated among pupils and teachers in Chinese elementary schools. It seems schools in the United State don’t celebrate June 1st at all. This difference leads to the gap between myself and my children, with regards to Children’s Day. The difference in surroundings, culture, and folk habits is a gap creator among immigrant families. Immigrant families likely have more gap elements across the generations.
The next day, on June 2nd, I was surprised to hear my children suggested to go to the movie theater to watch the film “Captain Underpants”, I asked:“Do you really want to watch a little kids’ cartoon movie?”
The children replied:“Yes, we liked the Captain Underpants series before.”
College students don’t care about Children’s Day, but enjoy watching childish cartoon movies like “Captain Underpants”. It seems to me, childhood memories influence adulthood a lot, no matter how long ago childhood was. I enjoyed Children’s Day when I was a kid, I still love to celebrate Children’s Day after more than forty years later. My children enjoyed “Captain Underpants” when they were little and they are still attracted to “Captain Underpants” after more than ten years passed.
The “Captain Underpants” series are popular books for children born in 90’s. Those children were also used to the elegant visual pictures and nearly perfect animations in video game when they were young. But being used to elegant visuals doesn’t reduce their visual enjoyment on rough and silly cartoons like “Captain Underpants”. This reveals that the memory of childhood silently influences adulthood.
The “Captain Underpants” cartoon movie we watched is simple and funny. The main characters are: two misbehaving and their school principal who is the dummy. I felt the movie respected friendship a lot, but it belittled the principal a lot too. I was taught to respect teachers, to behave well as a child, so I felt “Captain Underpants” is sort of against the education I received as a child. “Captain Underpants” revealed a big generation gap between I, who had grown up in China, and my children, who had grown up in the United States.
Many children born in 90’s also enjoy reading “Harry Potter”. When the first volume of “Harry Potter” became popular, my daughter was in elementary school. I started to read “Harry Potter” along with my daughter, so I could understand her more down the road. However, she enjoyed the book a lot, while I could not get into it. Later, I watched my daughter and my son be fans of “Harry Potter”, I realized that there will be many generation gaps ahead of us, because of the differences in our childhood. Like my children commented on me:“Mom, you are too serious!”
Believing in and wishing for the best for Children
is a way to reduce the generation gaps between us.
The Chinese version of this article here was first published in June, 2017 on WeChat.