It’s a Great Time to be Alive
Does this headline seem out of step with the sentiments of our time? In general, when you look at the news, social media, or hear people talking is it usually in praise of the era we’re living in and the state of our society? I think not, and I can understand why.
Yet, many of us
look at the eras we grew up in and say the same thing, “that was a great time
to be alive, a great time to be a kid.” For me it was the 90s. Playing outside
with neighborhood friends in a pre-cell phone and pre-social media decade, back
when the library was a place to check out books not practice activism, those
were the days.
I’ve heard the
same stories of great times to be alive from those who were kids in the 80s,
70s, 60s, and 50s. A cursory view of American history says something doesn’t
quite add up here. All these eras dealt with either wars (Korea, Vietnam, the
Gulf war), economic turmoil (inflation, gas shortages, recessions), political
strife (Watergate, impeachments, deficits) and/or social upheaval (anti-war
protests, drug issues, pandemics).
And this is just
the surface level stuff. So how did so many of us come out of one or more of
these eras looking back at the time as rose-colored and great? Because our
parents made it that way.
I’m going to posit
that if you grew up in a stable family, you can look back fondly on any era. Because
the truth is, every generation has its struggles and hardships. Yes, some have
been worse than others, but a child’s perspective is incredibly (and often
thankfully) myopic. Which means, if their home and immediate family is stable
their foundation is solid, and all the stuff going on around their home life isn’t
in focus.
I think we used to
collectively understand this better than we do now. At some point there was a push
or desire to make a philosophical change from an objective family centered
ethos to one centered on subjective individual happiness.
Instead of
encouraging and supporting the building of stable families, it said adults and
kids don’t need a solid base and in fact the idea of a solid base, an idea as
old as humanity, is an obstacle to the full potential of the individual. Everyone
should just do their thing. The individual should pursue whatever makes them
happy and kids, if or when they’re involved, will just go along for the ride. Life
is a random, crazy, spinning, dipping, twisting and thrilling roller coaster
anyway. Kids love roller coasters.
But it turns out
the roller coaster analogy presumes the roller coaster is on a safe framework
and there are adults in charge of the ride. The post-family worldview is really
like putting kids on a floating piece of debris in the ocean. Up and down, side
to side, no end, no beginning, no thrills, just motion sickness. Kids need
things to be tethered to reality.
Dads and moms are
the anchors that keep kids from being tossed about by the waves of uncertainty
crashing in every decade.
We all know that
kids don’t stay children forever. The time will come soon enough when they will
experience the hardness of the world and those rose-colored glasses will come
off. After all, we all went through that too. But that may be one of the
benefits to the often-maligned nostalgia we have for our childhood days. It can
put us in mind of the awesome power we have to provide something similar to our
kids. I’m not talking about trying to re-live childhood or curate their
experience to be exactly like yours was, but to know it doesn’t take money,
power, or a turmoil free world to provide a stable and loving home life for
your kids.