The Counterculture and the Generation Gap

Essay Question:

Was there a generation gap in your family in the 1960s or 1970s?

To support your argument, get some family stories about this era. The following questions should elicit family stories that will be useful to you. Composing your own questions might be even more successful, especially if you base those questions on your knowledge of your family chronology and history.

• Do the assassinations of the 1960s mean different things to different generations in your family (ie the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr, Robert Kennedy, Malcolm X)?
• What do people in your family remember about the hippies and communes of the 1960s?
• Did parents and children in your family in the 1960s or 1970s argue about clothes, hairstyles, drug use, or lifestyle?
• How do you feel about the music of the 1960s and after? Were there arguments about music in your family in the 1960s or after?
• Which generation in your family is most idealistic? most practical? most political? most religious? most selfish? most altruistic?
• What accounts for generational differences in your family (if you have them)?
• Has your family participated in the environmental movement in any way? How has the concern about the environment changed since 1970?



• How did your informant feel about clothing in the Seventies? Does he or she remember buying a first pants suit or leisure suit?
• Did your family watch the miniseries Roots in 1977? Did different generations react differently?
• Did your family watch the original Star Trek series (1966-1969)? Did different generations react differently?
  
  
  

More general questions for further conversation:

• As an adult, did you or do you play much with your children, grandchildren, or young relatives? What did or do you and the children like to do?
• As an adult, did you come to understand your own parents better than you did when you were young? What did you come to understand about them?
• Have you ever found yourself saying things your mother or father said? What were your father's favorite sayings? your mother's?
• Did your parents or grandparents have a favorite child or grandchild? Do you?



• What television shows did you allow your children to watch? Did you watch the shows with them? Did your family eat in front of the tv?
• What was your biggest success as a parent? biggest regret?
• When were you most worried about or frightened for your children?
• Did you encourage your children to develop passions (for sports, or favorite television characters, or bands)? Did you indulge them if their passions were silly?
• Did you ever spend too much on a gift for a child?
• How did you know you were loved as a child? How do you show your kids that you love them?