An 8-year-old boy with a dream set out to realise a big goal, and almost everyone thought that it was a challenging task.

Nash, a third grader from Lexington, Kentucky, was on autumn break when he decided to apply for a job to earm enough money for his mother’s birthday gift. Belinda Johnson, Nash’s mother, said the 8-year-old boy had seen a hiring (招聘) sign outside of a Drake’s restaurant near his grandmother’s house and went online to hand in his application for consideration.

On the application, Nash expressed his wish to buy a birthday gift for his mother. At the very bottom of the application, he said that he was 8 years old. When the kitchen manager saw the application, she just thought that he forgot to put the 1 in front of the 8. When the team at Drake’s heard Nash’s story, they felt they could do something for this young man. They invited Nash and his family to join the Drake’s team and later, a cook named Thornburg personally presented Nash with his very own Drake’s uniform.

Even though Nash didn’t get the job—the minimum (最小的) age for that type of job in Kentucky is 16, after all. Thomburg said that Nash was very interested in the role anyway. Then Thornburg showed Nash what the restaurant’s dish machine looked like and how it worked. When Nash was older, his mom said be wanted to go to work at Drake’s. Though Nash did not get the job in the end, his mother was proud of her considerate (体贴的) son and felt a sense of happiness at the bottom of her heart. Maybe it was just the best birthday gift his mother received.

“Ordinary” was the worst word my mother could find for anything. I remember her taking me shopping and taking no notice of the shop assistants when they suggested that some dress or pair of shoes was very popular—“we’ve sold fifty already this week”. That was all she needed to hear.

“No”, she would say, “we’ve not interested in that. Haven’t you got something a little more unusual?” And then the assistant would bring out all the strange colors no one else would buy. And later she and I would argue because I wanted to be ordinary but my mother wanted to be unusual.

“I can’t stand that hairdo(发型).” she said, when I went to the hairdresser with my friend and came back with a boy haircut, “It is so terribly ordinary.” Not ugly, not unsuitable. But ordinary …

“Couldn’t you please wear something else?” I asked one day when she was dressing for Parents’ Day in tight-fitting bullfighter’s pants and a bright pink sweater.

“What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?”

“It’s just that I wish you’d wear something ordinary,” I said “something that people won’t laugh at.”

She looked at me angrily and then said, “Are you ashamed of your own mother? If you are, Isadora, I feel sorry for you. I really do.”

Parents and kids today dress alike, listen to the same music, and are friends. Is this a good thing?

Sometimes, when Mr. Ballmer and his 16-year-old daughter, Elizabeth, listen to rock music together and talk about interests both enjoy, such as pop culture, he remembers his more distant relationship with his parents when he was a teenager.

“I would never have said to my mom. Hey, the new Weezer album is really great. How do you like it?” says Ballmer. “There was just a complete gap in taste.”

Music was not the only gulf. From clothing and hairstyles to activities and expectations, earlier generations of parents and children often appeared to move in separate orbits.

Today, the generation gap has not disappeared, but it is getting narrow in many families. Conversations on subjects such as sex and drugs would not have taken place a generation ago. Now they are comfortable and common. And parent-child activities, from shopping to sports, involve a feeling of trust and friendship that can continue into adulthood.

No wonder greeting cards today carry the message, “To my mother, my best friend.”

But family experts warn that the new equality can also result in less respect for parents. “There’s still a lot of strictness and authority on the part of parents out there, but there is a change happening.” says Kerrie, a psychology professor at Lebanon Valley College. “In the middle of that change, there is a lot of confusion among parents.”

Family researchers offer a variety of reasons for these evolving roles and attitudes. They see the 1960s as a turning point. Great cultural changes led to more open communication and a more democratic process that encourages everyone to have a say.

“My parents were on the ‘before’ side of that change, but today’s parents, the 40-year-olds, were on the ‘after’ side.” explains Mr. Ballmer. “It’s not something easily accomplished by parents these days, because life is more difficult to understand or deal with, but sharing interests’ does make it more fun to be a parent now.”