A Message to "The Generations".

Ah, the romanticism of "the good ol' days"!

And, for a lot of us, those good 'ol days were when we were growing up, and for a lot of us, it's either the decade (I consider myself a child of The 70s), or our generation (I'm at the tail-end of The Baby Boomers). Well, no matter your decade or generation, we need to temper our reminiscing with some truth--and that truth is, "Those good 'ol days weren't always so good at the time".

I bring this up after a friend right about my age got stiffed by a baby-sitter for the rest of the summer--and the babysitter didn't tell my friend until she was out the door for the final time--and this baby-sitter is 15. And, my friend was pissed. And, rightfully so. Pissed not only for the inconvenience of having to find a new baby-sitter pronto, but also for the blatant inconsideration of the offense. My friend was--and rightfully so at the time--wondering what the world is coming to these days, with young people so wrapped up in themselves that they can't/don't/won't think of anybody but themselves? After all, it wasn't that way when we were young.

Well, that's where we're amiss.

I remember being around 15, and hearing my parents and most of my seven older siblings say the same kind of things about kids my age. And I would bet that my parents' parents said the same thing about my mom & day way back in the day--and so on & so on.

And, it's here where I get back to the "romanticism" of our youth. Right now, I think of some times in the 70s where you looked forward to Saturday morning cartoons on two of the three channels available on your TV (until about 1977 when we got cable). We also walked to school for four blocks without worrying about a drive-by shooting or kidnapping, and you really lost social points if your mom and/or dad followed you when you went trick-or-treating--in fact, for those kids and the ones who got scared and wanted some of us to walk them home, we took about five handfuls of their candy as payment! Yes, a simpler time--without video games, the Internet or cell phones. But, now, the trade off: I also remember gas lines after the Arab oil embargo of 1973. I also watched the news back then, and remember stories about interest rates being upward of 20%. My dad also made me watch history being made--when Richard Nixon resigned the presidency in 1974. And that's just the beginning.

And, how about the 60s, with the Bay of Pigs, the LA riots, the civil rights movement at its peak, the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, the Chicago riots by the hippies & yippies, the Manson Murders, etc.. Even the 50s, with your "Leave It To Beaver" image of that decade--you have McCarthyism, the Korean War, and the proliferation of the Soviet Union. The 40s? World War II and the A-bomb for starters. The 30s? The Great Depression is enough. And to think I'm only two generations removed from people who may not have even had a car--or even knew what one was!

Do you get the picture?

I think every generation generally thinks the newest one is a little softer and spoiled than the it is. And, on some things, it's probably true. But our romanticism with our own generation sometimes blinds us to the fact that the generation before ours said the same thing about ours. And I think we need to remember that as we take some of the wrongs of the current generation to task. If one is really committed to making this a better world, coming from a viewpoint of understanding will go a long way toward righting those kind of wrongs--like the one my friend experienced with her now-former baby-sitter. However, this is NOT license to excuse such behavior. The kind of inconsideration shown by my friend's babysitter is inexcusable no matter the decade or generation. Folks like that need to be called on that kind of crap. I'm suggesting understanding, not approval.

Yes, no matter our generation, we should consider sticking up for what we believe is right, and then live it so that OUR children see it, and then model it. Maybe then the decade and/or generation won't really matter.

And, maybe then, the "good 'ol days" will be the days we get to live in today!