"You just don't understand!" Over the years, these words have been the battlecry (or the broken-hearted wail) of young people against the strictures and policies imposed by their elders. It is a cry usually followed up with a bracing statement that invariably begins with “When I was your age, we did things differently!”
The concept of the generation gap—that all-encompassing phrase used to describe the conflict between older people and the youth—has been presented in so many ways over the years. It has served as the gist of films, popular music, and television shows, as well as a starting point of discussion for many sociopolitical issues. It is a concept that has been played for both laughs and copious amounts of tears, but all of that is but the tip of an iceberg of conflicting yet correlated issues and points of view regarding anything and everything.
However, it is most notable that this conflict, so to speak, between generations has become more noticeable in recent years. Sociologists, psychologists, and cultural scholars have noted the increasing disparity among Baby Boomers, Generation X, and the so-called Millennials with regard to fashion, finances, and general morality.