Last year I saw in a documentary that one of the oldest documents in history is a sumerian tablet about a teacher (or a parent) complaining about kids not embracing traditions and disrespecting elders. I have been searching for that letter but I have not found it and I don't remember the exact documentary in which I saw it. I would really appreciate if someone here could help me with more information or a source where I could see it myself.
I can certainly give you some great quotes of ancient boomers complaining about the youth, a while ago I compiled a bunch of these quotes because I found them interesting...and they're seemingly relatively common in both recent and ancient history. This speaks to a truism about us monkeys, older people with experience often chastise young people without experience. Considering that it's easy to ignore that young people do gain experience, and that newer time periods offer different life problems; it's easy to reject these complaints as stemming from old people being too cemented in their values along with their nostalgia for their lost youth. But sometimes these complaints have a kernel of truth: there are many young people who need experienced teachers, and history "repeats itself" which gives older people insight into societal trends.
In the deeply ancient world these issues would've been exacerbated. Looking back 20kya, as a child of a family of semi-nomadic foragers if you did not learn the sacred knowledge about the natural world from your parents, grandparents, or other relatives...then you and your children would starve or die of a treatable illness. You'd better have listened to the bit about mushrooms. Now looking back 100kya at a Neanderthal family, if you did not learn the sacred knowledge of how to make tools in the Levallois technique then you would've failed as an individual (presumably). Whatever the process was for conserving the Levallois technique it was outstandingly successful because for around 100k years neanderthal parents taught their children how to make tools in this way and they copied it exactly, teaching the same style to their children, etc. Perhaps neanderthal family dynamics were such that there was no room for deviation, or perhaps the neanderthal brain never stepped outside of the useful techniques it had been taught in childhood. As far as I know of, they did not even adopt spear throwers when they met humans, even though it would've improved their spear's range and damage. Simply throwing one's spear with whatever was their family's throwing technique was the only thing every single neanderthal thought to do until they had all died (there were some neanderthals near the end who invented/adopted some new technology but the exception proves the rule).
While us sapiens are quite good at memorizing lots of information, and there are some human societies who strictly emphasize adopting heritage technologies, in general we never sit still. Each generation experiments, creating individuals with idiosyncrasies and eventually generational change. In the pleistocene, we see large technological/cultural changes every few thousand of years, by the holocene every thousand years or so, by the chalcolithic and bronze ages every few hundred years, by the iron age every hundred years; and now every year. This creates a social situation in which younger people sometimes live in a different world than their elders, a difference which has been increasing through human history and presumably gives those elders an opportunity to complain.
Now, ancient boomers complaining about the youth in chronological order...
Listen to me, for you are both younger than I, in earlier times I moved among men more warlike than you, and never did they despise me. Such warriors I have never since seen, nor shall I see, as Peirithous was and Dryas, shepherd of the people, and Caeneus and Exadius and godlike Polyphemus, and Theseus, son of Aegeus, a man like the immortals. Mightiest were these of men reared upon the earth, mightiest were they, and with the mightiest they fought, the mountain dwelling centaurs, and they destroyed them terribly. With these men I had fellowship, when I came from Pylos, from a distant land far away, for they themselves called me. And I fought on my own, with those men could no one fight of the mortals now upon the earth. Yes, and they listened to my counsel, and obeyed my words. So also should you obey, since to obey is better.
- Nestor in the Iliad II 259-274 by Homer
Help, Lord for no one is faithful anymore;
Those who are loyal have vanished from the human race.
Everyone lies to their neighbor;
They flatter with their lips,
But harbor deception in their hearts.
- Psalm 12 of the Tanakh
Very well, I will tell you what was the old education, when I used to teach justice with so much success and when modesty was held in veneration. Firstly it was required of a child that it should not utter a word. In the street, when they went to the music school, all the youths of the same district marched lightly clad and ranged in good order, even when the snow was falling in great flakes. At the master's house they had to stand with their legs apart and they were taught to sing either, "Pallas, the Terrible, who overturns cities," or "A noise resounded from afar" in the solemn tones of the ancient harmony. If anyone indulged in buffoonery or lent his voice any of the soft inflexions, like those which today the disciples of Phrynis take so much pains to form, he was treated as an enemy of the Muses and belabored with blows.
- Clouds, by Aristophanes
[Young people] are high-minded because they have not yet been humbled by life, nor have they experienced the force of circumstances...They think they know everything, and are always quite sure about it.
- On Youthful Character (Rhetoric XII), by Aristotle
Our sires' age was worse than our grandsires'. We, their sons, are more worthless than they; so in our turn we shall give the world a progeny yet more corrupt.
- Book III of Odes, by Horace
Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah.” When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call.” With many other words he warned them; and he pleaded with them, “Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.” Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day.
- Acts 2:36-41 of the New Testament by "Luke"
It looks like it was posted and answered here years ago. https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/wla9a/was_there_a_4000_year_old_sumerian_tablet/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share