Late to this discussion but I see Lynn's post as a list of things that many in that/my/our generation experienced. Nowhere does it imply that everyone in the generation experienced all of them or that others didn't have different experiences. Some (many?) of THOSE experiences will not be shared by current and future generations because of the changes in our world and country. For those of us who shared some of those experiences, it was a tender reminiscence without faulting or criticizing later generations.

First off, I just love, love that picture. Such exuberance and fun and what beautiful children. Also, sorry to hear you are going through a rough patch emotionally. Hope things clear soon.

As to the controversy, I think the author could have left out two bits that can come off as judgmental:

A generation that had parents who were there.

This can trigger those stay-at-home Mom arguments that always cause hard feelings.

A generation that is passing and unfortunately it will never return no matter how hard we try.

This can be construed as backward-looking in a politicized sort of vein.

Both of those sentiments can rub the wrong way, and I think the original author may have had a political intent that undermined (for some) what could otherwise have been a purely light-hearted nostalgic romp. Though I am not sure I would have thought much of it but for the posts here.

Edited to Add:

I knew it reminded me of something. This is a picture from the golden retriever family breeder where we got our dog. SO cute.

so many nattering nabobs of negatism to the OP ...

Oh, bragu, I had totally forgotten about nattering nabobs! 😆

Well then get ready bragu for more nattering although calling anyone here a nabob is a stretch.

I read the descriptions of the generation that will never come back (AFAIK no generation ever comes back) as just another declaration in this new societal war among the generations. It's a deafening drum beat and I'm over it. It's in articles in the NYT, The Atlantic, WaPo, all over insta, in comments on twit-space, threads, fb and even in our local paper. 'Gen X is shallow self involved, boomers destroyed the planet, millennials are lazy, gen z is overly sensitive and blaming.... because categorizing EVERYONE within an entire generation is productive, right? Well, it's productive for entities who get something out of a nation divided. Every generation has as much reason for rose colored glasses as the ones that follow and every generation has behaved in regretful ways. As for the list, I find much of it accurate but it's also limited to that rose colored view. There was a lot more going on and I'd bet even as children, most of us knew it.

Spiro Agnew! Of all people! I remember a gal I just saw at our reunion and I were in art class together in middle school where our project was to make a papier-mâché caricature of someone famous. We ended up doing agnew!

Mtn! Missed you!

Kisses!

I'm confused about all the negative comments regarding Lynn's post. My childhood wasn't idyllic (my dad was an alcoholic who stopped drinking when I was 12 when my mom threatened to divorce him) but everything that Lynn posted is still true for my childhood.

For the most part it is also true for my kids upbringing. But are either of them the best of times in general - again I have no idea.

My kids are millennials and if anyone calls them that they will have one heck of an argument about it from my kids. All those so-called groupings are set up by sociologists who just have to label groups of people and then find definitions to fit their labels and those definitions are usually comparative ones.

I'm with DLM. I'm over the generation-bashing, as well as the generational nostalgia. Personally, we all have something to be nostalgic about, and I think Lynn's post is a reminder of that. But young adults and children today are inheriting a big mess of a world. If anyone wants to look around and criticize younger generations... where did they come from?

P.S. We had a big station wagon with that rear-facing seat and my sisters and I fought over who got to sit there during long road trips 😀

@ LynnNM

My oldest sister is in hospice, and there are days that I just want to sit and cry. It is really hard. I want to spend time with her and I do visit as often as possible, but it breaks my heart to see her fading away.

When I am at home I find myself going through old pictures and reminiscing about the good old days. It brings me joy to think of the wonderful times we spent together.

This post brought back so many wonderful memories and I sincerely thank you for bringing a bit of joy into my day.

As for those who want to make this into some controversy, I will say that the comments I have read just reinforces my thankfulness that I grew up in a generation that was focused on fighting for civil rights, fighting to bring our boys home from Vietnam, fighting for women's rights and had the hutzpah to stand up to the government. A generation where neighbors helped neighbors and the middle class was thriving. An era where a mom had the opportunity to stay home because her husband could earn enough to support his family. A generation where the world envied America. A time when we led the world in education, manufacturing, health care and technology and put a man on the moon. A generation where you were more likely than not to be more successful than your parents.

I don't know where things went wrong, but I doubt that Martin Luther King's dream was that the little black boys and girls would be holding hands with little white boys and girls because the little white kids have fallen into poverty and get to live in poverty along side the black families.

We were on the right path, but greed sent us back to a society that is divided into the haves and have nots and all the hatred and discrimination and dehumanization that comes along with economic disparity.

In many ways it was the best of times. It wasn't perfect, but it was the era of the American Dream.

Jennifer -- Thanks for a beautiful post about where we were/are and our responsibilities to protect our precious republic.

I'm sorry to read that you are losing your sister. A Very Hard Time, waiting, but you seem able to embrace the *good* and put the rest to the side. My DM was dying of leukemia for over a year. I'm so glad hospice is widely available today; it was only beginning -- and not in the US -- back then.

Oh Jennifer, I'm so sorry about your sister as well. My sisters are my best friends, and I know I'd be devastated to lose either one.

And yes, thank you for your words.

My cousin, who has survived ovarian cancer, and had to retire from her career as a physician because of it, shared this thought with me during the pandemic; she said she was listening to an oldies music station and the Carly Simon song 'Anticipation' came on. The final lyrics are 'These are the good old days', and she said she realized the days of our youth really were the good old days, and we didn't know it.

I also agree with @DLM2000-GW. I hate the "Okay Boomer," assuming that anyone over 50 can't understand technology (who do you think invented most of this stuff?!), demonizing the younger generations (though that has gone on since time immemorial), and all the other ways that people try to divide us.

I am sad that it's considered dangerous to raise "free range" children, and many of the things that I loved about my childhood - riding bikes all day with my friends, playing Kick the Can with the entire neighborhood, etc. are simply not available to often overscheduled and over-parented kids these days, but every generation is different, and there's always positives and negatives.

I am brand new to this and haven't read some of the posts and don't know why there is any negativity to Lynn's post. I was a free-range only child and left the house after breakfast in the summer and only appeared for meals. My friend and I roller skated around town , went to the Five and Dime with our quarters to buy a trinket, swam at the Y, went to the movies every week for 21 cents(till you turned 12), and many times my friend's maid would pack our lunches which we'd eat miles out in the country. I cannot imagine this ever happening today. I see parents meeting their kids on the bus a block from my house and driving them the few blocks to their house. From first grade on I walked a mile to school in all kinds of weather which totaled four miles a day since I came home for the noon meal. We called it dinner back then and the day I was married, dinner was the meal in the evening and lunch was the noon meal. I grew up in a small Leave It to Beaver town. There were few black families, a very few Jewish, and the Catholic school was exotic to us. I left that town after college and never looked back. Not in a million years would I live there as an adult but in my carefree childhood, it was the greatest. My parents were very happily married and I had a lot of friends and not one had divorced parents. I was shocked when I met my husband whose father was married before. Growing up in a small town in the 50s was heaven. My kids were free range too but we lived in a confined suburb. I also grew up in the Lutheran Church across the street. I was enrolled as an infant and went to Sunday school and church every week until I left home. I even taught bible school. But those 21 years didn't rub off since I have not attended church in my adult life.

Jennifer, I'm so very sorry about your sister and hope that you receive an immeasurable amount of peace and comfort during this difficult transition.

I agree with Terriks. I cringe at the flippant and needlessly cruel "OK, Boomer" phrase. Like we're just too ignorant to "get it", when by and large we are the ones who built it! I find myself becoming more and more understanding and empathetic to what my elders experience as I approach their age with seemingly lightning speed.

I consider myself to have been something of a free-range child, at least once I reached a certain age and my mother could be certain that she had drilled into my head to look both ways before crossing streets and not to get into cars with strangers. I have amazing memories - which are actually more of an overall feeling of warmth than vivid recollections - of being a kid and just roaming far and wide in the neighborhood, especially in the summertime. We invented great fantasies and played them out when we were younger, and as we grew older we still freely went from friend's house to friend's house until the street lights came on in the evening. It was a childhood of magical play, lounging on old blankets while listening to our favorite songs on transistor radios, catching lightning bugs in jars and just running wild and free. It saddens me that I very, very rarely catch a glimpse of children playing outdoors today like that. They may be gaining other things that I didn't know growing up, but they're also missing out on something that nourished our very souls.

Coincidentally, there is an article in today's NYTs about "sleepunders"--parents who are too anxious to let their kids attend a sleepover either pick them up in the middle of the night or stay over with them. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/11/style/sleepunders-lateovers-sleepovers.html

I find this quite sad.

In defense of today's parents, I think, for a lot of different reasons, that dangerous and undesirable behavior has become more normalized. And if you want to protect your children from that, you have to be more diligent.

For instance, one of my female late elementary school friends was flashed in a store. That was shocking and virtually unheard of in my town. As another example, I wasn't exposed to overt racism as a child. Now, I'd think you'd be hard-pressed to find a free-range child who has NOT seen an unclothed adult or slurs on the internet.

I remember being free-range too (although we didn't call it that then). I got the many times repeated lecture about not accepting rides with people I didn't know. I didn't understand at the time why anyone I didn't know would want to give me a ride, but it was something drilled into me. I grew up in a small town of about 4,000. I felt free and unfettered, but I suspect if I'd stepped out of line, it would have been reported to my mom because everyone knew everyone else in town. I guess I had to have a dime in my pocket in case I needed to call home from a payphone.

I currently live on a quiet circle. Twenty or so years ago (early 2000s) there were a lot of middle school boys on the street. They never left their driveways, either on foot or bike. They shot baskets in the driveway or banged a tennis ball against the garage door. Half a block away is an elementary school with basketball courts empty every afternoon or weekend. From chatting with parents I got the impression everyone was afraid of the "other" harassing their kids. Never could figure who that might be. Near me are wooded creeks, delightful urban surprises in our midst. I walk them every day. I pass other adults out for exercise. I never see kids having fun there.

I don't recall anyone bashing Gen X/millennials and must of missed it, but those kids were raised by self-absorbed yuppie boomers so who's to blame if they seem odd to you? "Ok boomers" gen x and millennials were our creations and their memories will be of what they experienced, oh oh! MTV, empty houses......

Of the past 20 plus generations in North America there has been a recurrent pattern noted in generations. If history and the pattern holds true the Homelanders (2005 to present) will be more like the silent generation willing to just follow the rules, and one reason boomers went off the deep end to begin with. Personally I'd like to see Boomers out of politics completely with no more say but they will stick around until the bitter end, we are the generation that went astray and no other in my opinion.

There were 6 kids in my family, 7 in our next door neighbor's family and 4 in the house next to theirs. Our back yards were open - we had the pool, the neighbors had the woods. Below our 3 yards was the farmer's corn field and on the other side of the field was the local playground. Next to the house with the 4 kids was the "Old Widow's Home". My cousins lived in a house on the other side of the corn field. We had the only house on our cul-de-sac and and a circular drive with a bball hoop at the end of the cul-de-sac. We also had a farm with horses and cows just less than a mile down the street. We played chicken with the bull, swung on ropes from the loft in the barn and tried to land in the hay pile, rode the horses and on Sunday afternoons we often walked to the roller rink (across the street from the farm.)

Every kid who lived within several blocks of our house gathered in our back yard all summer long. We played kickball, bball, Alligators and Otters, rode our bikes, roller skated, even had a go-cart. We built tree houses and forts and went to the Old Widows Home and walked with the ladies and listened to their tales. the older kids were in charge of the younger kids.

We all headed out of the house as soon as we could get dressed, ended up at somebody's house for lunch, but always made it back home by 5:00 for a family dinner.

We learned how to work cooperatively, how to interact with others and built friendships that have lasted a lifetime. (Yes - I still have friends from the old neighborhood that I see and talk to regularly.)

The only thing we were strictly forbidden to do that some of our friends did was go to the Country Club. Our Country Club didn't allow blacks or Jews and my dad felt discrimination was wrong and would not allow my mom or his kids to support them.

Dad was a doctor, but always told us that the maintenance people at the hospital did more to save lives than all the doctors put together. They kept disease from spreading from room to room. He taught us that everyone had to contribute and every contribution was valuable.

As a teenager we had a star basketball player who would eventually make it as a top draft pick for NBA. I think back and think maybe this helped us with breaking the color boundary. He was the school hero and black. Everyone wanted to be in his circle, so you couldn't be popular and hang out only with white kids. Nobody cares if you were black, white, brown, green or purple. Were you fun to hang out with was really the only criteria.

I am still really close with his family, but times have definitely changed. Their home was always filled with kids of every color, but when I went to his Mom's last birthday party his wife, mother-in-law and I were the only white faces in the crowd. I go to other social gatherings that are entirely white. I hear discriminatory remarks and shake my head. What happened? Why can't we all get along? Why were we all able to play and work together back in the day, but now see people that don't look like us as the enemy?

I don't care if you are rich or poor, black or white, gay or straight, Gentile or Jewish or Muslim, Republican or Democrat, as long as you are a good person, you are always welcome in my circle.

@outpaientzero you didn't miss it because there is no mention in this thread - it originated in my post yesterday lamenting the ongoing 'war between the generations'. Your reference to GenX/Milennials as being those kids were raised by self-absorbed yuppie boomers is exactly what I was referring to.

If you are late to reading this thread, just be aware that it has been sanitized. Lots and lots of comments missing.

ETA my childhood memories.

I grew up on the prairies of Canada and moved to the US with my Dad's job in spring of 1963. I was a senior in HS and in order to graduate I had to take a US government and Economics class at summer school in the city. I normally drove in, but one day my Dad couldn't spare our family car and so he took me and I had to take a bus home. Parked at the school were two city buses. Not understanding why, I got on the second bus. I was the first person on. Once the bus was fully loaded I realized I had gotten on the wrong bus. I was the only white person on the bus. That is where we were in this country in 1963 . The city was Indianapolis.

Growing up (through 6th grade) in a very small town, on the Canadian prairies, I was totally free range, so much so that on Halloween , after we sung our little song (we didn't say trick or treat) we would be invited in for Hot chocolate or some other home made treat. We also got all the store bought candy in our bags.

Once we moved to the city, we just said "trick or treat". I think about those little songs we learned and sang and it seems really, really quaint.

I think the "American dream" began to slowly

disappear in the 60's when there was a feeling that not everyone was entitled to that dream.

You know, it's interesting to me that the idea of suburbia isn't given more attention.

We grew up in what used to called a bedroom community. A planned development of residential homes, 1 church, several apartment buildings, and no gas stations, shops or any other businesses for at least a couple miles' distance. There was barely any traffic to worry about, other than the main blvd, so of course we could play in the street if we chose, and walk around freely, even tho there were no sidewalks.

I remember learning about a study done years ago that looked at the 'range' that children were permitted to go unsupervised over several decades, and compared it with crime rates. Funnily enough, crime rates did not go up in the community studied, but the perception by parents of danger for their kids did go up, and over time the area kids traversed shrank until it was limited to their own property.

OTOH, nowadays, kids and their parents are getting shot by trigger-happy nuts who feel threatened by everything, along with increasing laxity over carrying weapons, so I can well understand why many parents don't want their kids out unsupervised.

Whether people want to accept the fact or not, so many circumstances are quite different now than they were 30-50 years ago.

"Free-range kids". Never seen this definition before. Puts me in mind of Hansel and Gretel as quality food for a discerning witch :)

I really believe part of being a free-range child is how much worry are the parents willing to take on? It's very hard to let your kids go and not know if they are safe or not. It takes a lot of faith to assume that things will always be ok. It's hard not to worry about all what could happen to them when they are out of sight and not managed by other responsible adults. It's so much easier to confine the child in a safe zone and not worry about them than it is to let them go and face the consequences of the off chance that something bad might happen...like the time my brother blew himself up...or fell in the pond...or was attacked by 3 huge dogs that had gotten loose...or I fell off my bike and skinned my knee badly...or how many times my GF and I crossed that very busy state road to get to the pharmacy to buy our Beatle cards...

And yes I was given the very strict lecture about not approaching any strangers in any cars that might stop and ask for directions...

I don't know what to think about crime and morality now vs then. . .

Has human nature really changed all that much or do we just talk more freely now than before?

Do you think the % of priests who are pedophiles increased?

My mom's older brother died in 1938, shot by the FBI. He was one of the top 10 most wanted criminals in the country. My mom and Aunts talked about how he turned bad after going to the movie theater as a kid and got raped in the bathroom. The doctor and her parent's told him to say he sat on a broomstick.

Look at the glorification of the gangsters in the 30s.

Speakeasys in the 20s.

The various street gangs and mafia's that grew out of the industrial age and sweat shops.

Bad things have always happened.

Crime is always greatest when you have great income disparity.

When we were kids and all hung out together we knew who's dad was too touchy feely and who's dad was a mean drunk and which teachers were creepy and we had buddy systems where we stuck together to limit the risk.

I remember going out with my friends to an underground club where the doorman didn't really check your id - I must have been about 16. We thought we were being slick. . . my brother and his friends showed up. They kept asking me and my friends to dance and they danced like lunatics and embarrassed the hell out of us until we left.

We had the village to raise the children. I never felt unsafe at a party, and at times was too naive to know that some guy was a creep, but there was always someone there that stepped in to stop the fun. It may have been one of my brothers or one of my friends brothers or one of my siblings friends, but they didn't let anything go too far.

Today we have pedophiles that can reach our children through the internet. They don't have their big brothers and the older neighborhood guys to keep them safe. It is all hidden behind a computer screen. We don't know which neighbor is a creep because we don't know our neighbors.

Are we keeping our kids safe by isolating them?

Are we creating more creeps because they don't learn how to be social?

Are we creating easier victims because they haven't honed their ability to identify creeps?

FWIW, I work for our city's rec dept., which runs a dozen or so before- and afterschool elementary and middle school playcamp programs, along with holiday playcamps when school is out. There are also large community events throughout the year.

There wasn't anything like that for us when I was a kid in the 60s/70s, other than summer rec programs that were only a half day. The kids in our programs get lots of varied enriching experiences that kids who sit home after school generally don't, along with all kinds of socialization and life skills. They also get unstructured time too. Thankfully, our city makes it pretty affordable for many. Also, we are licensed, and staff are heavily vetted and trained.

During the school year, our site has about 100 elementary campers and around the same number of middle schoolers. In the summer, those numbers are often double - and more. Some centers serve even more kids than we do, some serve fewer, but it's thousands every year.

Maybe we're not seeing kids out playing in their neighborhoods because they're in an afterschool program while their parents are at work...?

P.S. Another nice thing about our city is that planning mandates that every neighborhood around the city has a park within walking distance, so kids have a playground in their neighborhood.

My abiding memory of childhood is being very, very bored a lot of the time. I was forever asking my mum "what can I do?" Drawing and roller skating got tedious. The best colours in the paint box were always dried up. The crayons were often broken. My bike frequently had a flat tyre. The swing was badly anchored and rocked scarily. We had no TV, which I yearned for. My brother was not remotely interested in me. There were other kids in the street but they were not necessarily available to come out to play. My parents were great but they did not consider keeping me entertained to be a major part of their job. I was definitely "free range" but would have preferred to be a bit less so.

@floraluk2 - Your story is why I say I didn't realize as a kid, but have recognized as an adult that I was truly blessed. I am sorry that you didn't have the idyllic childhood and hope that things have gotten better for you as an adult.

You have got completely the wrong end of the stick, Jennifer. My childhood was absolutely fine. My parents were utterly loving and committed. I loved school. My friends were fun. I read voraciously and never lacked for books. I was in Brownies and had weekly swimming lessons. We had a large yard and access to countryside. But I was still frequently bored. We had no TV and the radio had very limited children's programmes. We didn't get a record player until I was 11. Children had very little pocket money then so shopping was a rarity. Indeed there were few shops to go to where we lived. So please don't get the impression that my childhood was in any way deprived. It was just boring.

Until I read this thread, particularly some of the later posts, I didn’t realize how idyllic my childhood was. I grew up on the family farm compound. My grandparents, my aunt and uncle, and my parents were all in houses facing a central lawn. We were somewhat isolated, but I had my cousins to play with; there were 5 of us. We roamed in a pack. It is a wonder that one of us didn’t get snake bit…we were always barefooted.

I’m sure there were bad things going on in the world, but not in our world. And our parents absolutely shielded us from everything that wasn’t child-appropriate.

btw, we cousins still get together at least once a year. And we have a text thread where we touch base about twice a month.

@floraluk2 - Sorry I misinterpreted your original post. We did have a TV, but only watched TV on Sunday nights. Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom and Walt Disney. Popcorn and soda's, blankets and pillows on the floor. We also read veraciously, only thing we were allowed to do for a 1/2 hour before lights out at bedtime.

A little boredom is a good thing. When better to develop a strong relationship with yourself? Kids need some time to solidify who they are, separate from the demands and influences of adults and peers. We all need time to stop and look around, to wonder about big and little things, to be comfortable with ourselves without outside stimulation.

I don't know about anyone else but boy this thread has become confusing. My first comment, along with others, has disappeared (for no reason) but my second comment, along with a lot of others is repeated twice. Is it just me?

bbstx, I had to comment on the cousins! I had a good childhood, lived in the county (except for 3 years when first married, I have ALWAYS lived in the county). We had family acreage; my grandparents lived up-the-hill from us and my grandmother's sister and her husband lived just across the way from them. There were only 5 other houses on the road we lived on. Two of these homes had children that we played with. Our road was closed in by woods, which were a great place for kids to play. In one area we had a huge sinkhole (great fun when the leaves fell) and in one area one of the other families with kids - the father built a big "pirate ship" where we had hours upon hours of adventures. If you went down the road where we lived, there was a family cross that (small, not terribly busy) highway where a family with two girls lived. They often played with us. Our grammar school was on that highway and across from it, the church where several generations of my family attended. I was married in that church. We walked to school, cutting through a neighbors back yard so we didn't get on the highway. I remember the crossing guard and the time our dog got hit by a car because he had followed us to school. We belonged to a "club" that had swimming pools and that is where we took swim lessons. All our cousins lived further out, some in the city limits, some still county. The families met often and cousins spent the night with each other fairly often. In the last few years, we have started "cousin lunches". My 3 girl cousins, 2 have moved out-of-state as has my sister. The only male cousin lives fairly near to me and my husband. I cherish and look forward to those lunches. We have them at least twice a year although I do see the two cousins who still live in the area more often.

I realize now how good my childhood was and especially what a blessing it was to have my grandparents so close. Such an impact they made on my life!

Bbstx, for my first several years we lived across the street from my cousins. Then we moved to family land, grandma next door and other cousins across the pond. Our cousins were basically our social group, our families vacationed and celebrated everything togetherm and we swam, sailed, and skated together on the pond. My kids don’t have cousins close by, they live minimum 10 hour drive away. It’s too bad because they are all the same age (three were born in the same year!).

My first comment about my childhood is gone too. Doesn't make sense-but who knows? I'm not losing sleep over it.

"My abiding memory of childhood is being very, very bored a lot of the time. I was forever asking my mum "what can I do?"

We learned very early on that we *never* told our mother we were bored. If we did, she found something for us to do, like dusting, vacuuming, laundry, cleaning our room, etc. It was always, "Find something to do or I'll find something for you!" So we got creative...fast!

There is something really odd in this thread...I went looking for my first post and couldn't find it, so I reloaded the page and went looking again and then it and the surrounding posts were there.

I clicked the link @ the top to see 92 more posts (at this point in time, earlier it was 89) and still do not see a lot of the early posts - I don't even see Lynn's explanation of why she shared it.

The structure of families and also of neighborhoods has changed so much over the course of our boomer lives. When we were young uns' most of our mothers were home. That is not a political statement or judgement. It is simply a true fact. That meant that the kids were not in day care, after school care, or locked in the house because no one was at home for them.

And, of course we had none of these distractions of video games and .unlimited electronic entertainment . We had to find our own things to do and other kids to do them with.

The world changed. I really do think that the changes in family structure have occured so quickly and so many other factors around that structure are still modeled after the past., starting with the structure of the school year. That old agrarian schedule has been obsolete for generations. We also need public schools to step up and offer more , do better and be a real part of the community. I am not going to hold my breath until that happnes, because it just is not going to . The world is spiraling down a hole and we are all beginning to ride the swirl.

I am not optimistic, at all. I fear for my grandchildren. The political and environmental horrors that they face are the stuff of bad movies and night mares and history books. Clearly a dystopian and apocalyptic future is in the cards for them to deal with. We can never return to that innocence.

Our childhoods were some of the best in human history. Historically, childhood has been something that one was lucky to have survived. In some parts of the world, it still is. Our depression era parents were on a mission to make our lives better than theirs. Our childhood was unlike any before it. We may have had to walk to school through snow drifts (true, for me) but we had a progressive society that gave us bright horizons, despite the Viet Nam war.

I fear that my grand children's country will be one of oppression and hardship, a diseased democracy and a dying and diseased environment.

Our child hood was not the norm for most of humanity. Healthy, happy children smiling from the back of a shiny fossil fueled vehicle going down the smoothley paved road of a civil suburbia is a thing of the past and you will be arrested for letting your kids ride like that, even if it is just in the neighborhood.

However, for each of those happy points and bits of nostalgia one could find and list, something that was very wrong with it all. Life was not perfect but we were, collectively, some of the most fortunate children ever.

We also got vaccinations against the childhood diseases that effected so many and led to such a high child mortality in the past. Several instances in my family history where they lost children to typhoid and other common deadly diseases. One generation on the tree lost all but one child in the wake of typhoid. The mother also died. All at home in the course of a few days, in Michigan. This was not uncommon. But, we never faced diseases that spread like that. We had an enchanted life, collectively, and over all. Sure, there are individual stories that contradict that, but that is always going to be so. It was not all warm fuzzies for everyone.

Interesting thought, claudia, on childhood. I think about my father who was the oldest son, who, as a child, chipped the concrete off of bricks so they could be reused and earned 1 cent for each...who then helped his father carrying 100 lb bags of coal up to whatever walkup as they were in the coal business...it affected his gait for the rest of his life. He also used to roll his own cigarettes and sell them. He got up early in the am to deliver milk before he went to school. So childhood for him, while it meant fun too, it also meant work and making money where you could so the family could survive.

Jennifer, how very well stated your response is!

We have lost our progressiveness and are now slipping and sliding backwards into the dismal past and its horrors. It takes a lot of momentun and effort to progress upwards. But going down hill is quick, easy and fast. But, when we fall into the past errors of society, we fall hard and deep. I fear that we are about to go over the cliff and America, however we know it, will fall as well. It is a train wreck that I cant bear to watch unfold on the national news each day and I have turned it off because I cant do anything more about it. expect to vote in hopes that enough others vote for peace, civility and progress and a continuning democracy. We are endangered, greatly..

There was plenty of social unrest in our youth, too. It is amazing to watch the history of what happened on the streets of America in our boomer life times. But, most of that was towards seeking a better world and securing democracy. Not so much in todays world. Today it is hate and anger and ignorance that is leading with the pitchforks and torches and angry mobs. It is not in pursuit of high ideas and to preserve democracy. They will .just burn it all down, their own house included.

Claudia's comment reminded me that post WWII was a prosperous time for our nation that might've been an anomaly, not something that could continue in perpetuity.

I agree we Boomers had the best childhoods ever. I am strictly talking about us children who mostly had secure homes. Of all the friends I had,no mothers worked, no family had a divorce and there were summer camps but no day cares. I have no idea what the perspective of an adult at the time would be.

I wonder how many parents would pefer to have one partner as 'homemaker', over the fancier house and more disposable income (cars, vacations, the latest 'whatever'). I'm pretty sure the children would choose a SAHParent over a nanny, their own bedroom, and the latest clothing and electronic games.

I'd like more people to have secure careers that pay enough to alow adults (parents) the choice. Other first world nations see the value to all in providing financial aid to the people raising its future citizens (parents).

I appreciate the simplicity of the Cost Of Thriving Index. It is not perfect, but simply shows a comparison of the number of weeks a typical worker would need to work in a given year to cover major costs for a family of 4 in the American middle class in that year: Food, Housing, Health Care, Transportation, and Higher Education.

https://www.ft.com/content/3f941f18-8e40-42b3-821d-359f3ef1c1d2 

In 1985, COTI was 39.7. Costs totaled $17,586, while median weekly income for a man aged 25 or older working full-time was $443 ($23,036 per year).

In 2022, COTI was 62.1. Costs totaled $75,732, while median weekly income for a man aged 25 or older working full-time was $1,219 ($63,388 per year).

I wish they had gone back earlier to 1965 but the earliest COTI index that I know of was 1985.