Father Knows Best?

Even in Vienna parents had been aware that adolescents are subject to mood swings. But they expected them to suppress their instincts, and to fall in line. After all, didn’t they know that moping must be fought with willpower, and that father is bound to know best? In America, these fathers were floundering, but were hell-bent on hiding their insecurities from their offspring. This made them even more controlling than they had been brought up to be. Their children, however, expected to keep up with their most loose-hanging American contemporaries. Because they all were, as the French would put it, dépaysé, clashes were inevitable between traditional, old-fashioned principles and progressive customs and morals.