There’s a photograph on my desk from about twenty years ago. My two sons flanking me at a company awards dinner, all of us in suits, all of us smiling.
What you can’t see in that photo is that I’d just been promoted to senior management, my older son had just gotten into his top-choice business school, and my younger one had landed his first real job. Success all around, right? What you also can’t see is that none of us had talked about anything real in months.
I grew up in a generation where you put your head down, did the work, and never complained. That’s how I spent over thirty years in human resources at a manufacturing company. That’s how I raised my boys. And for the longest time, I thought it worked. After all, look at what we’d accomplished.
But here’s the thing about never complaining: it becomes never talking about what’s actually bothering you. And eventually, that becomes never really knowing yourself at all.
The price of keeping it all inside
When I look back at my career, I see someone who built a reputation as the easy-going guy who could handle anything. Need someone to deliver bad news to employees? Call me. Need someone to mediate a difficult situation? I’m your man. Need someone to implement unpopular policies without pushback? Sure thing.
What I didn’t see then was how much of that “easy-going” reputation was actually conflict avoidance dressed up as professionalism.
I’d swallow my doubts about company decisions. I’d bite my tongue when supervisors treated people poorly. I’d nod along when policies made no sense because speaking up felt like complaining, and complaining felt like weakness.
The cost? Well, it took me until retirement to realize I’d spent decades helping other people navigate their workplace problems while never addressing my own. I’d become so good at not complaining that I’d forgotten how to advocate for what I actually believed in.
Teaching silence without meaning to
You know how kids learn more from what you do than what you say? Turns out that applies to what you don’t say too.
When my boys were young, I was hands-on. Soccer practice, homework help, weekend camping trips. But as they hit their teenage years and work got more demanding, I pulled back. Not just physically, but emotionally.
When they struggled with something, my advice was always some version of “tough it out” or “this too shall pass.”
I remember my older son coming home from college once, clearly struggling with his choice of major. Did I ask him what was really going on? No.
I told him successful people don’t quit when things get hard. I pushed him toward the business track that made sense on paper, the one that led to stability and good income. The one that looked like mine.
It took me years to accept I’d been wrong. Years to realize that my insistence on not complaining had translated into my kids thinking they couldn’t come to me with their real problems.
When the dam finally breaks
The shift started about five years ago. My younger son had just gone through a difficult breakup, and instead of his usual “I’m fine, Dad,” he actually told me how he felt. Really told me. The anger, the disappointment, the fear that he’d never find someone who understood him.
I sat there, stunned. Not by what he was saying, but by the fact that he was saying it at all.
Then my older son started opening up about his career. Turns out that business degree I’d pushed? He’d hated every minute of it. He’d built a successful career, yes, but in a field that drained him daily.
And here’s what really got me: he said he’d learned from therapy that his inability to speak up about what he wanted came from watching me do the same thing for years.
Therapy. Both my boys were in therapy, learning to say out loud all the things I’d trained them to keep inside.
Different generations, different costs
As I’ve watched my sons rebuild their lives with this new openness, I’ve seen both the benefits and the struggles. They advocate for themselves at work in ways I never could. They set boundaries with people. They ask for what they need in relationships.
But they’ve also had to learn these skills as adults, often through painful trial and error. They’ve had to unlearn patterns that were baked in from childhood. And sometimes I wonder if the anxiety they deal with comes partly from suddenly having to confront feelings that my generation just… didn’t.
Meanwhile, I’m in my sixties trying to learn what they’re learning in their thirties. Do you know how hard it is to start expressing needs and concerns after a lifetime of swallowing them? It’s like trying to use a muscle that’s atrophied from decades of disuse.
The apology that changed everything
Last year, I did something I never thought I would. I apologized to both my sons. Not a vague “I did my best” kind of apology, but specific acknowledgments of what I’d gotten wrong. The career pressure on my older son. The emotional distance during their teen years. The way I’d modeled silence as strength when sometimes it was just fear.
My older son later told me that conversation opened a door he thought would stay closed forever. We talk differently now. Not perfectly, but honestly.
Here’s what surprised me most: apologizing didn’t make me feel weak. It made me feel more like myself than I had in years. Turns out admitting your mistakes to your adult children doesn’t diminish you in their eyes. It makes you human.
Closing thoughts
So here I am, watching my sons navigate their lives with a emotional vocabulary I’m still learning. They’re building careers, relationships, and families on foundations of openness that feel foreign to me. And yes, they struggle sometimes with anxiety and overthinking in ways my generation maybe didn’t.
But they also know themselves in ways I’m only beginning to understand about myself. They can name what they need. They can walk away from what doesn’t serve them. They can show up fully in their relationships.
Did they pay a higher price, having to learn as adults what could have been modeled in childhood? Or did I, spending decades disconnected from my own needs and wants? I honestly don’t know.
What I do know is this: there’s no perfect generational formula for dealing with life’s challenges. We all pay prices for our choices and our circumstances. The real question is whether we’re willing to look at those costs honestly.
So I’m curious: what did your generation teach you about handling difficulties, and what are you teaching the next generation? Are you repeating patterns or breaking them?
