The Greatest Generation and The Tattooed Barbie

My wife Ann recently adroitly remarked to another couple that our generation, the baby boomers, are the connection of a world of the horse and buggy with the crazy-paced jet world of 2011, the world of the IBM supercomputer, Watson, that completely outpointed Jeopardy’s greatest mortal champions.   My generation grew up with parents who may have flown in a biplane, put their food in an icebox cooled with real ice, listened to scary stories on the radio because there was no television, did what they had to do in an outhouse, were warmed by coal rather than natural gas or electricity, and built infrastructure like walls and roads in post-depression America.  My generation had fathers who fought in WWII and had mothers who went without for the good of the wartime society. 

My mom and dad knew what it was like to see the terrible human toll of the depression.  They knew what it was like to buy a five cent loaf of bread and to feel lucky to have that nickel to spend.  They knew what it was like to leave the house to entertain themselves and interact with other people by taking the train to the Saltair Ballroom on the shore of the Great Salt Lake to dance the night away.  They knew what it was like to live in large families and to receive one gift for Christmas, if they were lucky.  They knew what it was like to lose a close relative to illness because it happened so often.

Theirs was a world where everybody knew everybody else in the neighborhood.  Theirs was a world in which there were clearly defined good guys and bad guys.  Theirs was a world in which kids were to be seen not heard and parents were in charge.  Theirs was a world in which couples stayed married, even if that marriage might be loveless, for the sake of the children.  Theirs was a world in which movies were mostly in black and white, and the sex scenes in those movies were only imagined, never portrayed.  Theirs was a world of “wear it until you wear it out,” and clothing was generally modest—in style and in price.

A few of the children of baby boomers have been lucky enough to be able to listen to the stories of “the good old days” from Grandpa and Grandma.  Many have not had that blessing.  Too bad.

My kids’ generation only knows jet travel in Boeing 747s and Airbus 320s.  My kids’ generation only knows climate controlled refrigerator-freezers with instant cold water and instant ice.  My kids’ generation only knows 100s of channels from which to choose on cable/satellite TV including numerous kids’shows.  My kids’ generation only knows indoor plumbing unless they go camping, and only know that when they flush, water washes everything away, and they can wash their hands afterwards with warm water.  My kids’ generation only knows thermostats on walls that can make them feel warmer or cooler in no time at all.  And although my kids’ generation has been exposed to the ugliness of war—especially the relentless but sanitized images of Iraq and Afghanistan, these modern wars of cost relatively few (but worthwhile) lives compared to WWII, and its effects have not been felt much on a daily basis.  There has been no sacrificing for the modern war effort per se.

The children of today sadly see people waiting for food from the Salvation Army or another charitable organization, but nearly all the children have plenty to eat and plenty to spend.  Because of the Internet and the myriad of social networks like Facebook and Twitter that are available at home or on their mobile telephones, the children of today don’t need to interact face to face; they are entertained electronically.   The children of today usually grow up in small families, and most only know entitlement.  The children of today have been blessed to be beneficiaries of scientific and medical breakthroughs, some of them living past difficult childbirths because of those advances.  The infant mortality rate in their Western world is extremely low, and if they were blessed to be able to know and speak with grandparents, it was likely because their progenitors’ lives had been extended by the miracles of modern medicine.

Unless they live in a rural, small town setting, it is difficult to get to know people living around them.  They live in a world of little or no feeling of community. They live in fear because their modern world is a dangerous place.  They live in an increasingly valueless society where right and wrong are relative and are likely taught by school teachers to think that they should not value their ideas above any other’s ideas.   They live with parents who want to be their friends rather than their parents and who have a hard time saying no.  And they rarely live with two parents anyway, especially if they are blacks.  Because nearly all of their friends’ parents or relatives have been divorced or they have been raised in by a single parent, they see marriage as a difficult institution that can be tossed aside when their interests conflict with their partner’s and the going gets tough.   They live with computers or cell phones where they can watch any kind of sex scene imaginable between any combinations of people.  They live in a world of immodest clothing, and an endless drumbeat of all types of media (including movies) relentlessly enticing them to keep buying the latest immodest fashions.

So here I am at the nexus, the transition, of “the greatest generation” and the generation of “the tattooed Barbie.”  I have a pretty good idea of my parents’ world, and that way feels SO different from the world of today.  I still feel awestruck by faxes and computers and credit card scanners and Skype, technological changes that have occurred in my lifetime.  I must admit to enjoying aspects of the easy life of 2011, and maybe I just feel a bit guilty that I am experiencing what my parents never could.  I may be feeling uneasiness that the things I enjoy today do not make up for the valueless environment in which they are enjoyed.  And it feels like that environment is rapidly getting uglier and weirder and sadder.  I feel powerless to do anything about in on a societal level, like I’m on a train going to the bad side of town and I can’t get off of because it is going so fast.

I guess all that I can do is to maintain the good values of my parents’ generation in my own interactions and those with whom I come in contact, and be appreciative for many of the blessings of the modern life.  I live the transition.