第34课

旁白 neutral

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,

当孩子们赞美朋友家，并将其视为对自己烹饪、清洁或家具的诋毁时，父母常常感到不安，

旁白 neutral

and often are foolish enough to let the adolescents see that they are annoyed.

并且常常愚蠢到让青少年看出他们很恼火。

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They may even accuse them of disloyalty, or make some spiteful remark about the friends' parents.

他们甚至可能指责孩子们不忠，或者对朋友的父母说些恶毒的话。

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Such a loss of dignity and descent into childish behaviour on the part of the adults deeply shocks the adolescents,

这种成年人丧失尊严、行为幼稚的举动深深地震惊了青少年，

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and makes them resolve that in future they will not talk to their parents about the places or people they visit.

并使他们决心将来不再和父母谈论他们去过的地方或见过的人。

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Before very long the parents will be complaining that the child is so secretive and never tells them anything,

不久之后，父母就会抱怨孩子如此守口如瓶，从不告诉他们任何事情，

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but they seldom realize that they have brought this on themselves.

但他们很少意识到这是他们自找的。

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Disillusionment with the parents,

对父母的幻灭，

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however good and adequate they may be both as parents and as individuals, is to some degree inevitable.

无论他们作为父母和个人有多么优秀和称职，在某种程度上都是不可避免的。

旁白 neutral

Most children have such a high ideal of their parents,

大多数孩子对父母抱有如此高的期望，

旁白 neutral

unless the parents themselves have been unsatisfactory, that it can hardly hope to stand up to a realistic evaluation.

除非父母本身表现不尽人意，否则这种期望几乎不可能经受住现实的评估。

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Parents would be greatly surprised and deeply touched if they realized how much belief their children usually have in their character and infallibility,

如果父母意识到孩子们通常对他们的品格和不犯错抱有多大的信念，他们会大吃一惊并深受感动，

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and how much this faith means to a child.

以及这种信念对一个孩子意味着什么。

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If parents were prepared for this adolescent reaction,

如果父母对这种青春期反应有所准备，

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and realized that was a sign that the child was growing up

并且意识到这是孩子正在成长

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and developing valuable powers of observation and independent judgment,

并发展出宝贵的观察力和独立判断力的迹象，

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they would not be so hurt, and therefore would not drive the child into opposition by resenting and resisting it.

他们就不会那么受伤，因此也不会因为怨恨和抵制而把孩子推向对立面。

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The adolescent, with his passion for sincerity,

青少年，怀着对真诚的热情，

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always respects a parent who admits that he is wrong, or ignorant,

总是尊重承认自己错了、无知，

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or even that he has been unfair or unjust.

甚至不公平或不公正的父母。

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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的，父母却拒绝承认。

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Victorian parents believed that they kept their dignity by retreating behind an unreasoning authoritarian attitude in fact they did nothing of the kind,

维多利亚时代的父母认为，通过退缩到一种不讲道理的专制态度背后，他们能保持自己的尊严，事实上他们根本没有这样做，

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but children were then too cowed to let them know how they really felt.

但那时的孩子过于害怕，不敢让他们知道自己真实感受。

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Today we tend to go to the other extreme,

今天我们倾向于走向另一个极端，

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but on the whole this is a healthier attitude both for the child and the parent.

但总的来说，这对孩子和父母都是一种更健康的态度。

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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和更安全的，无论当下它可能多么痛苦。