NOW... many of us have our own adult kids. NOW... the "fear" or concern is STILL on us.. we are concerned that THEY might remove themselves from or disown US. Our kids, for whatever reasons, don't seem to have the same need to be connected to their parents and family as we did, nor worried about doing, or not doing, things their parents would approve of. I'm making that statement personally, but I think it's systemic at least to a certain degree. I'd be happy to discuss weighty political matters with my adult children, but there's no point in doing so unless they valued or respected our opinions in the first place. Just for reference, my wife and I both have advanced degrees, and so do two out of three of our children. The one without the college education is actually more open to discussion.
Trying not to derail the topic here but...
People tend to associate with others of similar backgrounds, languages, looks, religion, socio-economic status, values, etc. Its in part (it wasn't "completely" natural, some of it was forced by legislative action) why cities developed enclaves like "Chinatown" and "little Italy." Its why even today, cross-ethnic marriages and mixed-communities are not common place and why until relatively recently, coming out as gay was a big deal (not that it isn't still a big deal for those still in the closet, but that's for them and their families/communities, not really the world at large). As a result of this isolated environment, most of us born before circa 1990 to 1995, learned to adopt the view points of our parents and communities. We feared being ostracized from that community because it was "home," it made us feel safe and secure and surrounded by people we knew, respected, loved, etc all of whom share similar values. We internalized those view points and repeated them to ourselves until those view points became true (as someone else commented, if you hear something that isn't true repeated enough times, eventually you start to question your own knowledge and understanding of whatever it is).
If you were born during 1990-1995, or anytime thereafter (especially) however, you entered your formative years, particularly your teen years when you were rebelling against your parents ideas and trying to determine who you were as a person yourself right at the height of the main thrust of the internet revolution. Those born after 1995 in particular dont really know a time before the internet and entered their teen years at a time when not only was the internet common place but it became readily available to you at any time via a fully functional browser on your shiny new 2007 iphone gen1 (yeah the internet on phones predates the iPhone but it was severely limited). Just a quick google search away, the internet provided a community of like minded individuals, where you could find support for your views while still remaining mostly anonymous. It created a giant social safety net to fall back on where the fear of being ostracized from your local community didn't matter because your online community that you found with like views would welcome you with open arms. This was accelerated further by the "absence" of parents in the home as dual income families became the norm and the internet started to blur the lines between work and home. Therein lies the divide between the "current" generation that has increasingly distanced themselves from the views of their parents in favor of new views.
Add to that we were actually somewhat due for a cultural revolution... Historically, they seem to run about once every 40-50 years or every 3-4 generations (a generation that starts it, a generation born into it and its benefits and a generation that starts to think yeah but we could do better... by the 4th generation its "we're going to do better") and at least here in the US the last major one was roughly mid-50's to late 60's with the Baby Boomers with the current upheaval arguably starting right "on time" sometime in the mid-to-late aughts... Cant speak from experience myself but at least from the historical descriptions of the 60's cultural revolution, the "kids" then weren't overly worried about being disowned and while I dont know that I've seen or heard descriptions of them disowning their parents generation, they clearly had major disagreements over the direction of society from Vietnam to sex, drugs and Rock and Roll and many made an effort to distance themselves in someway, shape or form from the prior generation though probably not as significantly and vitriolic as the current generation.
*Sarcasm
