How to Read “Parents don’t know their child at seventeen”
Oya no jūshichi ko wa shiranu
Meaning of “Parents don’t know their child at seventeen”
This proverb means that parents tend to think they understand their children completely, but in reality, there’s much they don’t know.
Parents spend long hours with their children and take pride in raising them. This makes them believe they know everything about their child’s thoughts and actions.
But the truth is different. Children have friendships their parents don’t know about. They have worries they can’t share with their parents. They hold dreams and hopes their parents can’t even imagine.
This proverb is used when parents make assumptions about their children. It’s also used when a child’s unexpected side is revealed.
When a parent insists “My child would never do such a thing,” someone might respond with “Parents don’t know their child at seventeen, you know.”
Children are not as simple as parents think. They are independent individuals with rich inner worlds their parents don’t know about. This saying teaches us that reality.
Origin and Etymology
No clear written records explain the origin of this proverb. However, we can make interesting observations from how the phrase is constructed.
The key lies in the expression “parent’s seventeen.” At seventeen, during the Edo period, young people had completed their coming-of-age ceremony. They were entering adulthood.
For parents, memories of being seventeen themselves were special. It was the height of youth. They worried about love, felt anxious about the future, and kept many secrets from their own parents.
But strangely, when people become parents, they forget their own seventeen-year-old experiences. They forget how many secrets they kept from their parents. They forget how much they lived in a world their parents didn’t know.
Yet they assume they know everything about their own children.
This proverb sharply points out this human contradiction. “Parent’s seventeen” refers to the age the parent once experienced themselves.
If they remembered what they were like then, they would understand that their children also have worlds unknown to them. But they forget.
This saying contains both a warning against parental assumptions and an affectionate recognition of this very human tendency.
Usage Examples
- I was surprised to learn my son had been writing novels. Parents don’t know their child at seventeen, as they say.
- I thought I knew everything about my daughter, but I’ve come to realize that parents don’t know their child at seventeen.
Universal Wisdom
The truth this proverb speaks to is about the limits of human perception and the blind spots created by love.
No relationship is closer than parent and child. They live under the same roof, see each other daily, and the parent watches the child grow. To the parent, their child should be the person they know best.
But this is exactly where the trap lies. Being too close can make things invisible. Thinking you know someone can be dangerous.
Humans have a fundamental limitation. We can only understand others through our own experiences and values.
Parents try to understand their children through their own life experiences. But children live in a different era, in different circumstances, with different sensibilities.
The world when the parent was seventeen is different from the world when the child is seventeen.
There’s an even deeper truth here. Love itself can make things invisible. Parents love their children, so they have wishes for “how they should be.”
These wishes can cloud their view of who their children actually are.
This proverb has been passed down through generations because it touches on something essential about human existence. Even in the most intimate relationship of parent and child, complete understanding is impossible.
In fact, it’s precisely because of that intimacy that understanding becomes difficult.
When AI Hears This
The phenomenon of parents not knowing their child’s youth is exactly what information theory calls the “observer’s paradox.” Parents are closest to their children, yet why can’t they grasp their inner lives?
This isn’t about physical distance. It’s about how information flows.
In information theory, observers inside a system actually have the hardest time grasping the whole picture. For example, a person inside a forest cannot see the forest’s overall shape.
Parents are the same. Being “inside” the relationship with their child, they cannot access information about how the child behaves in the outside world or what they’re thinking.
Even more important is this: the very act of parents trying to observe changes the child’s behavior. Children perform “the self they show their parents” in front of their parents.
In other words, the moment you install the observation device (parent), the measurement target (child) changes state. This has the same structure as the observer effect in quantum mechanics.
This information asymmetry isn’t one-directional. Children don’t know their parents at seventeen either. Each generation builds relationships while holding the “black box” of the other’s inner life.
This shows that human relationships are fundamentally “incomplete information games.” Precisely because we cannot fully understand each other, imagination and compassion become necessary.
Lessons for Today
What this proverb teaches us today is the importance of humility.
If you’re a parent, pause before assuming you “understand” your child. Children grow and change every day. The child you knew yesterday is not the same as today’s child.
Let go of the assumption that you “know.” Hold the humility that you “might not know.” Only then can you begin to see your child’s true self.
And this lesson extends beyond parent-child relationships. Your subordinates at work, your long-time spouse, your close friends. We tend to assume we “understand” people who are close to us.
But no matter how close someone is, you cannot know everything about their inner life.
What matters is not losing curiosity about others. Don’t label someone as “this is who this person is.” Keep expecting that there might always be new discoveries.
That’s the first step toward true understanding. The courage to admit what you don’t know becomes the key to building deeper relationships.
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