Picture this: Sunday dinner at my parents’ house. The smell of pot roast fills the air, my kids are fidgeting in their seats, and there’s this thick silence that settles over the table like fog.
My dad clears his throat, my mom passes the green beans for the third time, and we’re all desperately avoiding the elephant in the room—whether it’s my “hippie parenting,” their concerns about screen time, or the fact that we haven’t had a real conversation in months.
Sound familiar?
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how we got here. How two generations who love each other deeply can sit at the same table and feel like they’re speaking different languages.
My parents grew up in households where children literally lined up by age for family photos and spoke only when spoken to. They raised me to find my voice, chase my dreams, and never settle for less than I deserved.
And now? Now we can barely talk about anything deeper than the weather.
When “be quiet” meets “speak your truth”
Growing up in my small Midwest town, family dinners were sacred. Every night at 6 PM sharp, we’d gather around the table. But here’s the thing—those conversations stayed firmly on the surface.
Good grades, upcoming games, what happened at school. Never feelings. Never doubts. Never the messy, complicated stuff that actually shapes who we become.
My parents weren’t trying to be distant. They were raised by people who believed that children absorbing adult wisdom in silence was character-building. That emotional restraint was strength. That keeping your struggles to yourself was dignity.
Can you imagine telling your grandmother you needed therapy? Or explaining to your grandfather that you were taking a mental health day from work?
Then my generation came along, and suddenly we were told to journal our feelings, express ourselves authentically, and never dim our light for anyone. We went from “children should be seen and not heard” to “your feelings are valid and deserve to be expressed” in a single generational leap.
No wonder we’re all confused.
The parenting pendulum swing
Here’s where it gets really interesting. Those same parents who rarely heard “I love you” growing up made sure to tell us every single day. The generation that got the belt invented time-outs. The kids who were told to “toughen up” became adults determined to validate every emotion their children experienced.
We overcorrected. And maybe we needed to.
But now I’m watching my five-year-old navigate big feelings while my parents look on, slightly bewildered. When she melts down in the grocery store and I get down on her level to help her name her emotions, I can feel my mother’s discomfort radiating from three feet away.
Not judgment exactly, just… confusion. Like she’s watching someone parent in a foreign language.
“We never did all that,” she’ll say later, carefully. “And you turned out fine.”
Did I though? Did any of us?
Lost in translation
What kills me is that both generations want the same things. We want our kids to be happy, healthy, and successful. We want to be close to our families. We want to feel understood and valued.
But somewhere between “respect your elders” and “honor your truth,” we lost the ability to translate.
My dad wants to connect with his grandkids, but he doesn’t know what to do when my two-year-old has a tantrum. His instinct is to say “big boys don’t cry,” while mine is to acknowledge that feeling frustrated when your tower falls down is completely valid. We’re both trying to help. We’re both coming from a place of love.
Yet we end up feeling like we’re failing each other.
I see it in parenting groups all the time. Women my age agonizing over how to tell their mothers they don’t want unsolicited advice. Parents struggling to explain gentle discipline to grandparents who think a swat on the bottom never hurt anyone. The silent judgment. The careful distances we maintain to avoid conflict.
Building bridges where walls exist
So how do we fix this? How do we learn to talk to each other about the things that actually matter?
First, we need to recognize that both approaches came from love. My grandparents’ generation believed that preparing children for a harsh world meant teaching them to be tough and self-reliant.
My parents’ generation saw how that created emotional distance and swung toward encouraging self-expression. Both were trying to do better than what came before.
Here’s what’s working in my family: We’re starting small. Really small.
Instead of diving into debates about parenting philosophy, we share stories. I’ll tell my mom about a moment when her grandkids made me proud. She’ll share a memory of me at that age. Slowly, carefully, we’re building a bridge of understanding.
When my parents seem skeptical of how I handle my kids’ big emotions, I try to remember that they’re not judging me—they’re processing something completely foreign to their experience. And when they slip into old patterns, I remind myself that they’re doing their best with the tools they were given.
Finding our way forward
Last week, something beautiful happened. My daughter was having a rough day, and my dad—the man who grew up being told that boys don’t cry—got down on the floor with her. “Tell Grandpa what’s wrong,” he said, awkwardly but genuinely.
It wasn’t perfect. He still looked to me for guidance, unsure if he was doing it right. But he tried. After decades of one way of thinking, he tried something new because he loves his granddaughter more than he fears looking foolish.
That’s the secret, I think. Love has to be bigger than our discomfort. Connection has to matter more than being right.
We’re not going to solve this overnight. There are still dinners where the silence feels heavy, conversations we dance around, and moments of mutual bewilderment. But we’re trying. We’re learning each other’s languages, word by word, gesture by gesture.
Because at the end of the day, we all want the same thing: to be seen, to be heard, and to know that we matter to the people we love most. Whether we were raised to be quiet or encouraged to speak up, that fundamental need remains the same.
Maybe that’s where we start. Not with the differences that divide us, but with the love that’s always been there, waiting patiently beneath the silence.
