That’s the natural order of things.

Children are supposed to surpass their parents. Expand and increase the family legacy, make more money, live better.

This is the first generation where that is no longer true or possible. Children can’t find jobs, will never be able to buy a house, too often move back with their parents and live in their old room.

I’m from the generation just before. Events conspired so that I was able to buy the big house in Altadena.

I was just a public school teacher, but at family gatherings, I detected a jealousy. We toured the yard, the row of fruit trees, the side door that used to lead to stairs down to the tennis court which is now the neighbor’s property. The dining room with the long oak table and a mural on the wall. We had The Big House.

I don’t like to judge people, especially relatives. But when someone is wrong, sometimes it’s best to point it out.

Shirley’s Dad, Jimmy, believed that all change is progress, and all progress is good.

Referring to current events in the news at the time, I referenced the collapse of multi-story housing structures in Russia. They had been built too quickly and too cheaply, using course grain sand to mix with the concrete, because it was cheap and available, rather than more expensive but less available fine grain sand which would compact the concrete and not collapse. That’s change, “progress,” but not good.

He said, trying to hold the line, “They just wanted to provide housing for people after the war.”

He, and his wife, Shirley’s Mother, Virginia, Yaya, were both behind the times. I guess when every generation is passed by, superseded and replaced, they become “old school.”

People measure their present against their past. It takes time and effort to keep up, to evaluate. It’s much easier to settle comfortably and say, “Back in my day, we used to…it was better then.”

I’m thinking of music, especially singing, specifically opera.

Jimmy and Virginia both loved to sing. He was taking voice lessons, hoping for a career in opera. He saved money by telling her what he learned.

She was a mezzo soprano. Her role model was Risë Stevens. He was a baritone like me. He sang in churches for extra money.

Neither one kept up with the current opera scene. I don’t know why, because the Met broadcast was every Saturday, and I listened avidly. I also bought a lot of records.

When Beverly Sills came along, became international, then directed the New York City Opera and gave Placido Domingo to the world, Virginia seemed to know her only from the early singing commercials, “Rinso White!” Virginia said, “She doesn’t know opera and can’t sing it!”

How do you correct your parents?

I tried, by taking them to the Music Center to hear Victoria de los Ángeles on tour. I could only afford balcony seats, but we looked down and there she was by the piano, singing Spanish songs I loved, her beautiful clear voice reaching the upper levels above us.

The assessment, Virginia and Jimmy unanimous with each other, “Her voice is too small,” and “Those were songs I never heard,” and “It’s not opera.”

I don’t think they ever heard their idol Risë Stevens in person, but they had seen her in movies and heard the recordings, especially her signature role, Carmen. I don’t know if Virginia read the libretto, but she announced, “Carmen was a Great Lady.”

Uh…I wanted to say, “You mean the two-timing gypsy whore who seduces the policeman, ruins his life, then flaunts her affair with the bull fighter in front of him?”

But you have to show respect to your in-laws, and you love them in spite of their imperfections.

Which is why I tried to play it cool when Jimmy said, “What’s all the fuss about Figaro’s nose?” I wanted to assume he was joking, but I wasn’t sure, and didn’t want to open that can of worms. I know the problem of singing in a language you don’t understand.

I have feet of clay too, famously misunderstanding “solfege” as “sight reading,” misinterpreting something I had read and pontificating, “Russian singers can’t sight read music.” What a little uninformed pedant I was!

Jimmy didn’t think I was correct, but withheld judgment in the possibility that I just might be right. When I looked up the meaning of the words, my face got red, but I cowardly held my tongue.

Jimmy was a baritone and had voice training, could read music, and even composed a piano rhapsody which he played for us.

I was/am a baritone, but without voice training, and can’t read music.

But I listened to records, read the liner notes, listened to the radio all the time, and went to live performances when I could. I soaked it all up like a sponge.

Jimmy and Virginia were both old school and living in the past.

Jimmy ventured the name of a favorite tenor, Ferruccio Tagliavini. That goes back to his early days still living in Greece. Tagliavini was a bel canto tenor like Gigli, and apparently had appeared on the Ed Sullivan show singing a beautiful Ave Maria. I missed so much, not having a television at the time. But I have Tagliavini on records, in Lucia di Lammermoor where he sings a satisfying bel canto, and the wonderful duet album with Pia Tassinari. But come on now! What about Bjoerling?!

Then there was the battle of the baritones. Jimmy favored Leonard Warren who was also my favorite, and unfortunately died on stage in 1959. Virginia preferred Robert Merrill, I suspected because he was younger and she liked his looks and he was still singing on television where she could see him. He was on Ed Sullivan a lot, even sang with Victor Borge, and was absolutely contemporary.

Jimmy understood Warren’s greatness, and understood that his loss ended an age. But when I discovered Warren’s successor, Sherrill Milnes, a big clear expressive voice with range and dimension, I didn’t try hard enough to introduce him into Jimmy’s current awareness. Jimmy did grudgingly admit there was power and presence, but when you cling to the past, it’s hard to relinquish it. And Jimmy’s own singing was nasal, an extruded sound apparently promoted by his teacher for audience projection, but not to my taste. Shirley agreed with me.

It was not a full-time job to bring my in-laws into the second half of the 20th Century, but I did what I could.

I found a video or DVD of José Carreras, a movie he made highlighting his early years when his voice was in its prime. He sang notable representations from his repertoire. I didn’t have the capability to play it, but loaned it to the in-laws so they could get a taste of the contemporary opera scene and singers. This must have been before the health and vocal problems relegated Carreras to a lower rank, and his appearance with Pavarotti and Domingo as one of the Three Tenors, where many critics say they carried him.

Carreras has a wonderful voice with a warm expressive beauty and I was eager to see and hear the video (alas, I still haven’t seen it), After a couple weeks, the video was returned with the dismissive comment, “He’s not so much.”

I don’t like to contradict relatives. But I can learn from the experience, as children surpass their parents, as they should.

So I wonder what kind of Father and Grandfather I am. I know the offspring surpass me in everything like technology. That’s to be expected.

They don’t, however, surpass me in love. And I don’t surpass them in love, either.

I learned the lesson of love long ago, and no one surpasses me in that.