My Generation 560
I come from a generation that never knew electronic tablets. Our tablets were wooden boards, where we copied verses from the Quran, learned them by heart, and recited them before the fqih. A single mistake meant the sting of a stick, followed by the laughter of classmates.
We never begged our parents for toys. We built them ourselves—rolling bicycle rims with a stick for handlebars, imitating the roar of engines with our mouths, or crafting skateboards from wood and ball bearings. Our games were simple but endless: hide-and-seek, marbles, spinning tops.
We did not need private lessons. Our teachers were masters of their craft, teaching with passion and devotion. We discovered poetry, crossword puzzles, and the joy of words at an early age. Respect for elders was a rule, and care for the younger ones a duty.
Holidays were not for travel but for small jobs that earned us coins to buy books—Camus, Hugo, Balzac, and others that today’s youth rarely open. We lived fully in the real world, untouched by the virtual.
Our joys were simple: an old movie at the cinema, a homemade sandwich of tomatoes and peppers, afternoons at the public pool, or slipping into a football match just before the final whistle. One black-and-white TV channel was enough, and a transistor radio was a treasure.
We kissed our parents’ hands, respected teachers and policemen, shared our scholarship money with siblings, and saved schoolbags and textbooks for years. We listened to our grandmothers’ tales in the dark, our imaginations weaving monsters, heroes, and enchanted princesses.
We knew the Solex, the 2CV, the Dauphine, the R8. We wrote letters and waited for the postman as if he were a hero. Pocket money came only at Eid, and our first driver’s license only after our first paycheck. We grew up running errands, carrying bread to the oven, water from the fountain, groceries on credit in the neighborhood shop.
We learned values the hard way—through discipline, slaps, and the watchful eyes of parents, neighbors, and teachers. Elders were always right. We listened more than we spoke.
That is why my generation is so different from today’s. We are often misunderstood, dismissed as outdated—even by our own children. Yet I cannot help but feel that those who never lived what we did have truly missed something.
Dr. Fouad Bouchareb
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