The barrier of mistrust helps explain the frustrating generational divide. It’s a war over meaning. Mistrust makes young people subtly read between the lines of each comment their elders make, trying to interpret the hidden implications of our words, to determine if we are disrespecting them or not. Young people focus more on the unsaid part than the said part. For instance, when a teenager’s mother asks, “Did you brush your teeth?” the child interprets it as, “I think you’re so incompetent that you won’t even remember something so simple as brushing your teeth”—even though the mother never
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