“In Our Time, We Didn’t Have This” — Who’s Right?

Two Friends at the Next Table

About the stories: the conversations in this article are composites. Names and details are changed, and every line is something many of us have heard — or said — at some point.

I was waiting for a friend at a café near a coaching centre when two students sat down at the next table. A boy and a girl, maybe twenty-two. Best friends, from the way they talked. The boy’s phone kept buzzing; he turned it face down without looking.

“Kya yaar,” he said. “Are we just born to get scolded?”

The girl, Ishita, half-laughed. “What happened now, Aman?”

“Papa. Same dialogue. ‘At your age I cycled eight kilometres to college. You have a bike, a laptop, AC in your room, and you can’t clear one exam?’ Then the teacher — ‘You people have AI to explain everything. We had one guide book for the whole class.’”

“Join the club. My internship boss said, ‘We worked till midnight for half your stipend and never complained.’ Then I come home and Mummy says, ‘At your age I was married and expecting you. And you can’t even decide what you want.’”

Aman pushed his cup away. “I wasn’t born in their time. How is their struggle my fault? I have AI — I’m also competing with AI. I have a laptop — so does everyone applying for the same job. Why does nobody count our struggle?”

Ishita stirred her coffee for a long time. Then, quietly: “The worst part is, I know they love me. That’s why it hurts more.”

I didn’t say anything. But I thought about it all the way home. I’ve been on both sides of that table. Once, I was Aman. Some day — sooner than I’d like — I’ll be the one saying, “In our time…”

So who’s right?

So Who’s Wrong?

Is Aman’s father wrong? Not about the facts. He probably did cycle eight kilometres and study under one bulb. Is Aman wrong? Not about the facts either. He didn’t choose his birth year, and his pressure is real.

Both are telling the truth. They’re just answering two different questions.

Do you have more facilities than we had? Often, yes — the internet, AI, better medicine, cheaper travel. Some of that progress removed real suffering, and young people shouldn’t pretend it didn’t.

Is your life therefore easier? Not necessarily. A gym membership doesn’t make you fit. A laptop doesn’t get you a job. What you build with a facility depends on effort — and also on health, money, family support and plain luck, plus the new problems the facility brings along.

More facilities don’t mean fewer problems. But different problems don’t automatically mean a harder life.

The first half is for the parents. The second half is for Aman.

Knowing that in my head wasn’t enough, though. I wanted to know what goes on inside a parent when they say these lines.

That Night, I Asked My Own Parents

After dinner, Papa was watching the news. Mummy was folding clothes. I sat down and asked, awkwardly:

“When you say ‘in our time we didn’t have this’… what are you actually feeling?”

Papa lowered the volume. He looked at me like I’d asked something in another language.

“Feeling? What feeling… we just say it.” A long pause. “Maybe… worry. I see you with everything and I think, what if tomorrow it’s not there? Will you manage? We had no choice, so we learned. You never had to.”

Mummy kept folding. “When I say ‘at your age I was married’… I’m not saying do the same. Times are different, I know that. I just get scared. Time goes fast. I don’t want you to regret something at forty.”

She smoothed a shirt she’d already smoothed. “And sometimes… I don’t know. I just want you to know what we went through. Nobody ever asked us anything. We just did it.”

I asked, “Do you want me to feel guilty?”

Papa made a face. “Guilty? Arre, no. We did all this so you wouldn’t have to struggle like us.” Then, more slowly, “But value it. That’s all I want.”

Then he turned it around. “And you? What do you feel when we say it?”

I thought about Aman and Ishita. “That my effort doesn’t count. Whatever I do, it’ll always be less than what you did.”

Nobody spoke for a few seconds. Mummy put the clothes down.

“That’s not what we mean,” she said.

“I know,” I said. “But that’s what we hear.”

Papa switched the TV off completely. That almost never happens.

“Okay,” he said. “Then you tell us. What do you think? How do you want to live? We keep talking — you never tell us anything.”

I hadn’t expected that. For a moment I didn’t know where to start.

“Papa… you had one exam and one job to get. I’m competing with lakhs of people for the same seat, and now with machines that can do half the work. When you say I have it easy because I have a laptop — everyone has a laptop. It doesn’t feel like a gift. It feels like the minimum.”

He didn’t interrupt. So I kept going.

“And I’m not lazy. Sometimes I’m just tired before I even start, because every time I open my phone, someone my age has already done what I’m still trying to do. You compare me with your past. My phone compares me with the whole world. Then I come home and it happens again.”

Mummy was listening now, really listening.

“About marriage, Mummy — I’m not running away from it. I just want to become someone first. I don’t want to choose my whole life in a hurry because the neighbours are asking.”

“And the money thing,” I added, half-smiling. “Sometimes I spend on a trip or a dinner with friends. To you it looks like waste. To me it’s the only rest I get. I do save. I just don’t tell you, because then we’ll argue about how much.”

Papa raised an eyebrow. “You save?”

“A little,” I said. “See, you never asked.”

That made Mummy laugh. Then she got serious. “So what do you want from us?”

I’d never been asked that either.

“Ask me what’s hard before you tell me what’s wrong. Trust me with some decisions, even if I get a few of them wrong. And when you say ‘in our time’, tell me what it taught you — not just how hard it was. I actually want to know that part.”

Then, because it was only fair, I admitted my side. “And I know I’m on the phone too much. I roll my eyes too quickly. And I’ve never once asked you what your hardest year was.”

Papa was quiet for a while. “Some of what you’re saying is right,” he said finally. “Some of it I don’t agree with. Changing jobs every two years still worries me.” He paused. “But I didn’t know you felt like this. We thought you just didn’t care.”

“I care,” I said. “That’s why it hurts.” Ishita’s words, coming out of my own mouth.

We didn’t solve everything. Nobody changed their mind about marriage or money or jobs that night. But we made one small deal. Before either side says “in our time” or “you don’t understand”, we’ll ask one question first. And once a month, we’ll actually talk — not argue — about what’s hard right now. Theirs and mine.

What I Worked Out by Midnight

I couldn’t sleep. And slowly a pattern appeared.

When elders say “in our time…”, the words are about the past, but the feeling underneath is usually about the present — and about you. Often it’s fear (will you cope?), love (I don’t want you to suffer like I did), or the wish to be seen (nobody noticed what we went through). And sometimes, honestly, it’s just winning the argument — that one does the damage.

The young side has its own hidden feelings: feeling unseen (my effort never counts), exhausted (my phone already compares me with the whole world), afraid (I don’t know if I’ll make it), and wanting room (let me choose a little).

And here’s what surprised me most. My parents had never heard any of that — not because they didn’t care, but because I had never said it. We expect our parents to understand a world we never describe to them. They explain their past to us all the time. We almost never explain our present to them. Both sides were talking. Neither side was telling.

So a parent can say a sentence full of fear and love — and the child can hear a sentence full of judgment. Not always. But often enough to wreck an evening.

Neither side is lying. They’re speaking two languages and assuming they’re the same.

Why Both Sides Feel So Sure

Three ordinary things are happening under the surface.

Comforts stop feeling like comforts. Remember your first UPI payment? It felt like magic. Today a “cash only” board irritates you. We get used to good things, then stop counting them. So Aman doesn’t feel lucky in his AC room — for him it’s the floor he stands on. His father remembers summers without it, so for him it’s a gift. Both are honest. They’re just standing on different floors.

Memory edits the past. Notice how the uncle’s walk to school gets longer every time he tells the story? Three kilometres becomes five, then eight — “in the rain, without slippers”. He isn’t lying. Our memory simply polishes the past. We remember our younger selves as more hard-working and disciplined than we probably were, so today’s young people look lazy next to that polished picture.

And this complaint is not new. Every generation of elders has worried that the young are softer, lazier, more distracted than they were. Rabindranath Tagore looked at it the other way round. In Stray Birds (1916) he wrote: “Every child comes with the message that God is not yet discouraged of man.” To him, a new generation wasn’t proof that things were getting worse. It was a sign of hope — a fresh chance, not a falling standard.

Still, a polished memory isn’t always a wrong one. If a father says you can’t sit with one book for an hour any more, he may be right. And the young do the same thing in reverse — they imagine the past was simple, without ever having lived it.

When everyone has it, it stops being an advantage. When two students in a class had a laptop, it was an edge. When everyone has one, it’s like owning a pen. The same happened to degrees, and AI is the same story on fast-forward. Progress often does two things at once: it makes the task easier, and it raises the standard of what counts as good. That’s how Aman can own a better laptop than his father ever dreamed of — and still feel crushed.

Three Conversations Every Home Has

Studies and screens

How it usually goes: “You have coaching, YouTube, AI. We had one guide book. And still these marks? Always on that phone.” “Everyone has the same things, Papa. The competition is crazy. And you’re on WhatsApp all day too.” Door closes.

Underneath: the parent thinks, “I gave you everything I never had. If it isn’t working, either you’re not trying or I’ve failed.” The child thinks, “I’m already running and still falling behind. Now home feels like an exam hall too.” Both are partly right: access is easier, and when everyone has it, the race gets faster. And yes — the phone really can swallow hours, at every age.

A better version: “I can see you’re under pressure. Where exactly are you stuck — understanding, practice, or just too much at once?” “Practice. I get it when I watch, but I freeze when I’m alone.” “Then let’s fix that part. Show me what you’re using to study.”

To teach: ask about the process before judging the result. “Where are you stuck?” opens a door. “Why are your marks low?” shuts it. To learn: be honest about how you actually use what you have. If three of five study hours go to the phone, admitting it is the start of fixing it.

Work and money

How it usually goes: “We stayed in one job for thirty years. You switch every two. And ₹250 for a coffee? A month’s milk didn’t cost that.” (amounts are illustrations) “Nobody gets a job for life now. And it’s my money — I earned it.” At work, the same talk wears a different costume: “We worked till midnight for half your salary.”

Underneath: the elder thinks, “Stability and saving kept our family safe. Change and spending feel like danger.” Sometimes there’s also a quiet unfairness: “Nobody made it easy for us.” The young person thinks, “The promise you had — one company, one pension — isn’t on offer to me. And this coffee is the one small thing I do for myself.”

A better version: “When you switch jobs, what are you looking for — money, learning, or escape?” “Learning, mostly.” “Fair. Just make sure you’re running towards something, not only away. Same with money — I’m not saying don’t enjoy it. Just know where it goes.”

To teach: share what loyalty and saving gave you. “Staying taught me to handle difficult people” is a lesson. “We stayed, you don’t” is a complaint. To learn: your parents’ fear of spending often comes from a time when one bad month meant real trouble. That instinct — keep a cushion, notice the leaks — is worth borrowing, even if you spend differently. One generation knows how to stay; the other knows how to adapt. Good lives need both.

Marriage, children and “you’ll understand later”

How it usually goes: “At your age I was married. What are you waiting for?” “I’m not ready. I don’t even have a stable job.” “You’ll understand when you’re married. When you have children.” And sometimes the old classic: “We grew up with a slap and a scolding, and we turned out fine.”

Underneath: the parent’s head holds love, fear and some social pressure all tangled together — “I don’t want you to be alone. What will people ask me?” And a painful thought that makes people defensive: “If the way we were raised was wrong, was everything we did wrong too?” The young person thinks, “I want to choose carefully, not quickly. And I want to keep the good parts of how you raised me and leave the rest.”

Both have a point. Many elders took on huge responsibility very young and made it work — that deserves respect. And “we turned out fine” is always said by those who turned out fine; the ones who were hurt are rarely at the dinner table telling their story.

A better version: “I don’t want to rush you. Just tell me what you’re waiting for, so I can stop worrying.” “To be settled at work, and to know myself better.” “Okay. Then let me tell you one thing I wish someone had told me before I got married…”

To teach: “You’ll understand later” ends a conversation. “Here’s what I learned that I wish I’d known” starts one. And admitting “I was too strict sometimes” earns more respect, not less. To learn: behind “what are you waiting for?” is usually fear for your future, not control. Answer the fear with a real reason, and it calms. Keep what built strength — discipline, respect, responsibility. Drop what only built fear.

Should We Hand Our Struggles to Our Children?

When a parent says, “We suffered, so you should feel guilty for having it easy,” they’re handing their struggle down like an old loan. But remember what Papa said: “We did all this so you wouldn’t have to struggle like us.”

If the child grows up comfortable, the plan worked. Making them feel guilty for it is like building your family a house and then being angry they don’t know what it felt like to live in the rain.

Not all hardship is the same, either. Some hardship builds skill — patience, saving, finishing what you start. Some only leaves scars. Pass on the first kind of lesson; there’s no need to recreate either kind of pain.

Pass on the lesson. Not the load.

The young side has a duty here too. If your parents built you a house so you wouldn’t live in the rain, don’t waste the house. Respecting a sacrifice doesn’t mean copying the hardship. It means making the effort worth it.

Good intentions don’t excuse control. Frustration doesn’t excuse entitlement. A sacrifice deserves respect. But it doesn’t give anyone unlimited authority over another person’s life.

What Our Old Texts Offer

Our own traditions give a useful way to think about this — and not the way it’s usually quoted.

Almost every Indian child knows Matru devo bhava, pitru devo bhava, acharya devo bhava — treat your mother, father and teacher as God. It comes from the Taittiriya Upanishad. Very few know what the same teacher says in the very next lines, as his students leave: follow only our good conduct — not the other things. The teacher himself is saying: take our best, not all of it. That’s the healthiest “in our time” there is.

The Bhagavad Gita (6.5) adds: lift yourself by yourself; don’t let yourself sink — you are your own friend and your own enemy. Blaming your era won’t lift you. Neither will being blamed for it.

And Abhimanyu, in the Mahabharata, learned how to break into the chakravyuha — a deadly circular battle formation — but never how to get out. Half the knowledge took him in; the missing half cost him everything. For an AI generation: getting into a subject fast isn’t mastering it. For elders: the young may have access, but they still need someone to show them the way out.

Meeting Halfway

Neither side needs to win. Both need to move a little.

Elders, keep: discipline, patience, saving, respect for effort. Change: explain the reason behind advice; swap “we didn’t have this” for “here’s what helped me”; remember that you hold more power — over money, marks and permissions — and more power means more duty to be fair.

Young ones, keep: speed, openness, the courage to ask “why?”. Change: don’t treat convenience as achievement — having AI isn’t an accomplishment, learning with it is; don’t confuse “my problems are different” with “my problems are bigger”; and once in a while, ask about their struggle before they bring it up. Nobody asked them either.

Both: be curious before being critical. You don’t have to agree about marriage, money or phones to sit at the same table happily. The trick isn’t agreement. It’s understanding.

One Habit

The next time someone says “in our time…”, don’t defend yourself. Ask: “What did that teach you?”

It turns a lecture into a lesson. Parents often soften the moment someone is curious about their struggle instead of irritated by it.

If you’re the elder, try the reverse. Before you say “in our time…”, ask yourself: “Am I sharing a lesson — or winning an argument?”

Your 7-Day Check

• Day 1: List three facilities you have that your parents didn’t at your age.
• Day 2: For each, note what it made easier — and what new pressure came with it.
• Day 3: Ask a parent or elder, “When you say ‘in our time’, what are you really feeling?” Just listen.
• Day 4: Ask about the hardest year of their life. Write down one line of what it taught them.
• Day 5: Use one facility for something that would make them proud — learn, finish or fix something.
• Day 6 (elders): Replace one “we didn’t have this” with “here’s what helped me”. Then ask what your child is finding hard.
• Day 7: Tell each other one thing you understand a little better now.

Back to the Café

As they got up to leave, Ishita said, “Maybe they just want us to know they struggled.”

Aman shrugged. “Then they should just say that. Not make it a competition.”

He’s right. And after that night at home, I know his parents are right too, in their own way. They aren’t competing with him. They’re trying to protect him — and asking, clumsily, to be seen.

Nobody chose their year of birth. The old don’t owe the young a life without lessons. The young don’t owe the old a repeat of their hardships. What each owes the other is simpler: respect for what was given, and honesty about what is hard.

So if you’ve felt this — whether you’re the parent or the Gen Z kid tired of the arguments — try one simple thing this week. Take your parents, or your child, out for dinner. Or lunch. Or just a morning or night walk. No phones, no lecture, no scorecard. Have a calm conversation. Listen to their side till the end. Then explain yours.

Because most of the time, the problem isn’t how either side thinks. It’s that we never actually sit down and talk. We react, we argue, we close the door — and both sides go to sleep feeling misunderstood.

One walk won’t solve everything. You may not agree 100%, and that’s okay. But it’s the first step towards that middle point where two generations can meet — where parents feel seen, children feel heard, and everyone sits at the same table a little lighter.

One day, someone younger will roll their eyes at your “in our time…”. Make sure it’s a story worth hearing — not a bill they’re expected to pay.

Sources & further reading

• Tagore, R. (1916). Stray Birds, verse 77. New York: Macmillan (public domain; Project Gutenberg).
• Protzko, J., & Schooler, J. W. (2019). Kids these days: Why the youth of today seem lacking. Science Advances, 5(10) — on how memory shapes elders’ view of the young.
• Taittiriya Upanishad 1.11.2; Bhagavad Gita 6.5; Mahabharata (Abhimanyu). Plain-English meanings are our own summaries.

About the stories: Aman, Ishita and the conversations in this article are composites — not real individuals. Their lines are built from conversations many of us have heard.