Lesson 34

Adolescence

Parents are often upset when their children praise the homes of their friends and regard it as a slur on their own cooking, or cleaning, or furniture, and often are foolish enough to let the adolescents see that they are annoyed.
父母经常在孩子们称赞朋友的家并将其视为对自己烹饪、清洁或家具的侮辱时感到心烦意乱，并且往往愚蠢到让青少年看出他们很恼火。
They may even accuse them of disloyalty, or make some spiteful remark about the friends' parents.
他们甚至可能指责他们不忠，或者对朋友们的父母发表一些恶毒的评论。
Such a loss of dignity and descent into childish behaviour on the part of the adults deeply shocks the adolescents, and makes them resolve that in future they will not talk to their parents about the places or people they visit.
成年人表现出的这种尊严丧失和幼稚行为深深地震惊了青少年，并使他们下定决心，在未来不再与父母谈论他们去过的地方或见过的人。
Before very long the parents will be complaining that the child is so secretive and never tells them anything, but they seldom realize that they have brought this on themselves.
在不久之后，父母将会抱怨孩子如此守口如瓶，从不告诉他们任何事情，但他们很少意识到，这种情况是他们自己造成的。
Disillusionment with the parents, however good and adequate they may be both as parents and as individuals, is to some degree inevitable.
对父母的幻灭感，无论他们作为父母和个体表现得多么好且称职，在某种程度上都是不可避免的。
Most children have such a high ideal of their parents, unless the parents themselves have been unsatisfactory, that it can hardly hope to stand up to a realistic evaluation.
大多数孩子对父母都有如此高的理想，除非父母本身表现不佳，否则这种理想几乎经不起现实的评估。
Parents would be greatly surprised and deeply touched if they realized how much belief their children usually have in their character and infallibility, and how much this faith means to a child.
如果父母意识到他们的孩子通常对他们的品格和绝对正确性抱有多大的信念，以及这种信任对一个孩子意味着什么，他们会感到非常惊讶和深深的感动。
If parents were prepared for this adolescent reaction, and realized that it was a sign that the child was growing up and developing valuable powers of observation and independent judgment, they would not be so hurt, and therefore would not drive the child into opposition by resenting and resisting it.
如果父母对这种青春期的反应有所准备，并意识到这是孩子正在成长、正在发展宝贵的观察力和独立判断力的迹象，他们就不会感到那么受伤，因此也就不会因为怨恨和抵制这种反应而将孩子推向对立面。
The adolescent, with his passion for sincerity, always respects a parent who admits that he is wrong, or ignorant, or even that he has been unfair or unjust.
青少年带着对真诚的热情，总是尊重那些承认自己错了、无知，甚至曾不公平或不正义的家长。
What the child cannot forgive is the parents' refusal to admit these charges if the child knows them to be true.
孩子不能原谅的是，如果孩子知道这些指控是真实的，父母却拒绝承认。
Victorian parents believed that they kept their dignity by retreating behind an unreasoning authoritarian attitude; in fact they did nothing of the kind, but children were then too cowed to let them know how they really felt.
维多利亚时代的父母相信他们通过退缩到一种不理性的威权态度背后保持了尊严；事实上他们根本没做到，但孩子们当时太胆怯，无法让他们知道真实的感受。
Today we tend to go to the other extreme, but on the whole this is a healthier attitude both for the child and the parent.
今天我们倾向于走向另一个极端，但总的来说，这对孩子和家长来说都是一种更健康的态度。
It is always wiser and safer to face up to reality, however painful it may be at the moment.
面对现实总是更明智、更安全的，无论它此刻多么痛苦。