I am haunted by the movie Alfie, which came out in 1966. Michael Caine plays Alfie, who is trying to grasp the question—what it’s all about.

Am I any different than Alfie, other than old enough to be his father? As I mulled over my predicament, I recalled Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young singing Teach Your Children.

Graham Nash wrote the song. He could transcribe his feelings into words that became the lyrics of Teach Your Children. He stated that “Humanity was in great danger.” That was in 1968. During that year, Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy were assassinated. The civil rights movement faced the reality that white America had to face the reality of racism. The Tet Offensive in Vietnam made it clear that we were involved in a war that didn’t make sense. LBJ decided not to run again due to the war.

During that year, I left the States after getting my master's. I spent a year at New College at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. It was my respite from the chaos in America in the late 60s.

During that national period of angst, David Crosby had been forced out of the group the Byrds, Stephen Stills’ band Buffalo Springfield fell apart, and Graham Nash left The Hollies. So, wherever Americans looked, they saw disarray at all levels of America. As Nash stated, “Humanity was in great danger.”

Great danger motivated Nash to respond to it, which was the genesis of Teach the Children. What is fascinating about the song is that the first half deals with teaching our children. However, the second half is a mirror of the first half. The children are to teach their parents, which created an interesting dichotomy and tension.

When The Final Days, by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, was published, my dad sent me a copy as a Christmas gift. This is what he wrote on the title page. His complement was a nice play on words.

In my twilight years, I went to Myanmar a dozen years ago. On my first trip, I met my three granddaughters. Ti Ti was nine, and her younger sisters were two and four. Over the years, I have spent a lot of time trying to assist them, especially Ti Ti. I saw Ti Ti and I as clones of each other.

In another month, Ti Ti will be twenty-one. Gone are the days of the wise old grandfather teaching Ti Ti. I listen to Ti Ti’s understanding of the world and her place in it. I am processing what Nash wrote in 1968. The teaching issue is reciprocal. Parents or grandparents are to teach their children, but the children are also to teach their parents or grandparents.

These are the lyrics of Teach Your Children.