Family Traditions and the Generation Divide - Research Paper Example

John. I asked him for his availability to set up a meeting with him. Hence he scheduled a meeting on 7th December, Saturday’s afternoon. I planned to discuss the questions after lunch in his tea time as it is good to have a casual setting so that an elderly informant feels comfortable to share his experiences. After lunch we grabbed our cups of tea and started the interview. I planned it to be of an hour or maximum one and a half hour but since he had so much interesting past stories we kept talking for three hours.

I already made a list of questions a sample of questionnaire to be filled, so I took notes on it so it would be easy to draw conclusions. Though my questions were very precise Mr. Johnson Louis had some interesting insights about our culture and how he claimed that our youth is ignoring those culturally rich traditions day by day. Mr. Johnson as a child was blessed with a culture enriched with family values unlike the family setups we see these days. As a child he always wanted to go to a famous boarding school but he was not allowed by his father and years after that, today he is thankful to his father for not letting the family disperse as he allowed his son who moved out of the house after his high school.

This is a clear indication of the generation gap he stated, as a child we do not understand feelings of our parents but when we do reach that place in our own life then we do. He had a spark in his eyes when he recalled those traditional thanksgiving dinners with the much awaited turkey, when even children used to get excited about these traditions and traditional meals. He misses those old times when he used to cook turkey and California’s famous rolls when all the family used to gather and cook meals together on vacations.

He shared some interesting insights about changing family trends he has witnessed over the years in his profession as a lawyer where he sees that now days the importance of family is being replaced by freedom , independence and mostly money. There were a couple of techniques used to make the interview smooth. Firstly a comfortable setting was required that is why I choose the informant’s house for the interview. Secondly making it more of a story-telling, rather than interview so that the informant can relate to the questions and this was done by not interrupting the informant.

The questionnaire was designed with open-ended questions to have a detailed collection of answers I recorded the input by making notes on the questionnaire itself and I recorded the input by making notes on the questionnaire. It felt like a whole new experience , never felt this way before about Mr. Johnson , this interview helped me a lot in knowing him better and yes about the cultural traditions that are slowly fading away by no other threat than our own selves. One main lesson I learned is that one should record the entire conversation in phone or some gadget to have a detailed recording of the entire data.

Reference Mr. Johnson