Kaitlyn Thornton Abbott

I wish I had been born back when the world was simple.  I wish I had born back when the world was still beautiful.  I wish I had been born in the early-mid-1900s.  The times of our grandparents were better times, and it would do our generation well to return to that mindset.  The world of today’s American society and culture is fruitful, full of blessings we can achieve at the press of a button.  But it can’t be denied a negative connotation has come with it.  Philip Wylie summed it up rather well when he said, “Material blessings, when they go beyond the category of a need, are weirdly fruitful of a headache.”  Back in the early-mid-1900s, the mindset of the culture was different.  Every day and age has its own mindset, it’s true.  But the times of our grandparents were better times, and it would do our generation well to go back to that mindset.  Families spent time together, Sundays were the day of rest, kids were healthier, and there were standards.  I want you to take a step back from our perspective and look at this with a third-person point of view.

Answer me this: Is it really better of our generation to become antisocial toward our families and lock ourselves in our rooms with our iPods, computers, and cell phones?  Is it truly a better idea to spend all of Sunday freaking out over that paper that’s due first period Monday morning, or to spend that day doing chores ALL DAY?

We live in better times, so you say.  But is it really better if our generation has to deal with childhood obesity because every little boy out there is stuck inside all day playing Call of Duty: Black Ops?  And lastly, is it truly better if there are no standards in relationships or personal worth?

Cell phones, iPods, laptops: what every kid wants for Christmas.  Why?  So they can be in CONSTANT contact with their friends and because EVERYONE else has one.  But all of those have negative aspects that aren’t publicized but are rather well-known by the parents of almost any teenager.  If someone has a phone, a laptop, or an iPod, there’s no reason to get out of bed and do anything with your family.  This makes kids these days at times socially inept, because all of their social skills are based off of typed words, seen visually instead of having to deal with face to face communication in 80% of their lives, not counting school, according to The Simple Life: Applications Of Living Well by Amy Dacyzyn, the best-selling author of a newspaper dedicated to living without the distractions of today.  If we were to take a time machine and go back to the mid-1900s, we’d be shocked at how they lived.  Dads went to work, and the work day ended at 5 o’clock, on the dot.  They came home to a hot, HOME COOKED (i.e., not fast food) meal, awaiting them, and the family all sat down and ate together.

Geoff Asslet posted this conversation in his blog:

Someone asked the other day, “What was your favorite ‘fast food’ when you were growing up?”  “We didn’t have fast food when I was growing up,” I informed him.  “All the food was slow.”  “C’mon, seriously….  Where did you eat?”  “It was a place called ‘home,’” I explained.  “Mum cooked every day and when Dad got home from work, we sat down together at the dining room table, and if I didn’t like what she put on my plate, I was allowed to sit there until I did like it.”  By this time, the boy was laughing so hard I was afraid he was going to suffer serious internal damage, so I didn’t tell him the part about how I had to have permission to leave the table.

Before dinner, the kids would walk to their friends’ houses, sometimes a couple blocks away, playing outside, riding bikes, playing on the playground and such, using their imagination.  Nowadays, you don’t ever see that; all the imagination takes place inside a video game with 3D graphics and effects.  Dads are working late hours into the night; moms are busy taking kids to soccer practice and ballet lessons and carpooling a bunch of other kids.  Kids are up late hours into the night working on that paper they procrastinated on.  Experts all agree spending quality family time together is ESSENTIAL to a child’s emotional, physical, and mental maturity.  So if we keep heading in the direction we’re heading in, the future could very possibly consist of emotionally unstable, weak, stupid people.  Oh wait….  (Go to Wal-Mart, you’ll see my point.)

Sundays were the day of rest back then.  Families spent time together going to church, hanging up the laundry in the back yard on clothes pins; the kids went out and played before having to come home and go to bed so they could be well rested for school the next day.  Parents didn’t do much except relax before the upcoming week, except for making dinner, that is.  Now, Sundays are the catch-up day, rushing to finish any papers, practice, and football days.  The Merriam-Webster online dictionary defines resting as “to refrain from labor or exertion.”  Does that sound like any of your Sundays?  Or are yours, as well as mine, characterized by homework and chores?

Kids were so much healthier.  As I stated earlier in my first point, kids played outside; they had to WALK or RIDE BIKES to a friend’s house.  That in and of itself is more exercise than most kids in today’s society get.  People, mainly teenagers, are so “busy” they don’t have the time to exercise.  I’m sorry but that’s a load of crud.  They don’t have the time to exercise, because the time they could be doing that is spent on Facebook, video games, or TV.  Back in the day, there was no obesity not medically related.  Kids were outside soaking up the Vitamin D and being ACTIVE.  Childhood obesity was unheard of, unless you had a medical disorder.  They also didn’t have all of the processed junk we have now.  McDonald’s hamburger and fries, a Wendy’s Baconator, which I, for one, love, and Chick-fil-A: all of which have preservatives, salt, fat, and grease in them — lots and lots of it.

We figure into today’s life in the fast lane having fast food seems like a blessing.  And at times, when you’re pressed for time, it is.  But it’s also what kids have come to expect and crave, and it’s leading to a lot of weight problems in our generation.  People were not just physically healthier but mentally as well.  Since they didn’t have the same tools we do, they had to apply their brains a lot more than what’s required today (cough, calculators, iPads, etc.).  We have calculators and computers to do all the thinking for us; we don’t have to.  When my great grandfather was alive, he could go to the store and do a percentage in the store.  Who do you know who can do that today?  Not very many people, I’d say.

1950: people had standards.  In his blog about his childhood growing up in the states, Geoff Asslet comments also about how girls present themselves these days.  I mean, let’s think about it.  Homecoming dresses, for one, make me embarrassed to see girls wearing them — and even things people wear every day?  It’s just ridiculous to see girls giving away their bodies to complete strangers.  And relationships.  For goodness’s sake, what happened to VALUES?!  More teenagers nowadays I know are sexually active than would’ve even been accepted back then!  Yet society promotes promiscuity.  You know it’s culturally mainstream when there’s a Facebook “like” for it.

1950s: Guy comes to the door and asks father’s permission to date his daughter.

1980s: Guy’s at the door and girl just leaves with him.

2000s: Guy calls, “Hey, I’m here.”

2010s: Guy texts girl, “I’m here.”

I mean can you just say WOW?!  How much have the standards of respect changed?

I just want to leave you with this thought: Is it truly better of our generation to be socially inept and inadequately prepared for life after high school because we’re too dependent on technology?  Maria Robinson once said, “Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.”  That’s what we need to do now: not try to eradicate what we’ve been blessed with, but use to our advantage instead of wasting our lives on it.