I remember that when I was in my teens, I used to rebel at many of the “do’s” and “don’ts” my parents used to dictate to me. For example, when I kept on playing jazz records on the record player, my father used to condemn such music as sheer noise and replace them with disks of classical music that I always considered extremely dull.

My mom and dad were also very particular about the friends I went out with, always quoting the maxim the “one rotten apple could ruin a whole barrel of apples.” When I insisted that I sleep with my pet dog Peppy, they immediately said NO because they thought that I would be bitten by fleas.

These are just a few examples of many of the things that I thought my parents were unreasonable about. Today, however, I am also the father of a boy of fifteen, and I find that I, too, am pressuring my son with a lot of rules and requlations that he seems to find hard to swallow. The other day, I noticed that my son’s hair was altogether too long, so I told him to go to the barber’s and get it trimmed short. Ordinarily, he is fairly obedient, but this time he put his foot down.

“What’s wrong with long hair?” he said. “All my buddies have long hair. And besides, it’s my own hair, isn’t it? I don’t think you have the authority to order me to cut it short, even if you’re my father!”

When I was a boy, if I had spoken with such impertinence to my father, I know that he would have given me a good thrashing. But I suddenly realized that we are now living in a more liberal world, and that my son’s insistence on wearing his hair long was merely an instance of the generation gap that existed between us. So I relented, and so he still wears his hair long.

记得我十几岁时，我总是反抗父母指定我做及不要我做的许多事。例如，当我用唱机听爵士唱片时，父亲总指责这种音乐只是噪音，而换上我一直认为是最沉闷的古典音乐唱片。

我爸爸妈妈对和我一起出去的朋友也很挑剔，并常引用格言说：“一颗老鼠屎坏了一锅粥。”当我坚持要和我的小狗佩比一起睡，他们马上说“不行”，因为他们认为我会被跳蚤给咬了。

这些只是我认为父母许多不合理的事中的一个例子。然而，今天我也是个十五岁小孩的父亲。我发现自己也用一大堆我儿子似乎觉得难以忍受的规定来压迫他。前几天，我注意到我儿子的头发实在太长了，所以便叫他到理发店去修短。平常他是很听话的，但这次他坚持。

“长头发有什么不对？”他说，“我所有的朋友都留长头发，况且，这是我自己的头发，不是吗？我认为你没权力命令我把它剪短，即使你是我父亲。”

小时候，如果我对父亲讲话这么无礼，我知道会招来一顿好打。但是我突然了解到我们现在是生活在一个更自由的世界。我儿子坚持留长发，只是存在于我们之间的代沟的一例。因此我态度变温和了，也因此他现在还留着长发。

generation n.一代

dictate v.指定；命令

jazz n.爵士乐

condemn v.指责

particular a.挑剔的

maxim n.格言

flea n.跳蚤

put one’s foot down坚持反对