Sharing a Perspective with My Parents Now that I'm Old

When I was young, either a sophomore or junior in college and about 18 years old, I read Paul Goodman's Growing Up Absurd. I loved it and during my next visit home I told my parents about some of the things Goodman had written. Both of them, college professors, responded, each in his/her own way, by saying something like "what he is saying is really nothing new". At the time, I really could not accept their responses, thinking they were closing their eyes to new realities. But now that I am much older than they were at the time, I believe I better understand their perspective. For as I read so many commentaries about today's world, I think, this is not necessarily something entirely new. Those who think they are providing incredible insights may be quite mistaken. I am not saying plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. But I am saying that there are a lot of similarities with the past as time passes. What did Freud say? The return of the repressed?