Can we go back in time?

[CarrieH]

Anyway, what good things should we strive to recover from those halcyon years of childhood, and what good things are we doing in the year 2007?

Alas, you remember the halcyon days, but my memories are more of the hemlock variety. I also grew up in the '60’s and '70’s, with Mom at home and Dad at work, and us kids playing Monopoly and kickball. I remember my cousins and older schoolmates going off to fight in Vietnam, and coming home very different from how they left. Air raid drills in school weren’t much fun, especially since we girls had to wear skirts or dresses as we crouched in the hallway with our geography books over our heads. Being on the brink of a nuclear war was pretty scary. The highlight of my class trip to Washington D.C. was the experience of getting caught in a race riot. The thought of going back to that world doesn’t appeal to me, even though the kids could be sent out to play after breakfast and not come home until lunchtime without spawning an Amber Alert.

I don’t think we could go back even if we wished to do so. Each generation has its own challenges, fears, and victories. I’m all for a return to traditional family values, less TV/internet/video games, more spirituality, less materialism, more exercise, and better food, but the world we live in today bears little resemblance to the world of 1965. Our youth need to be prepared to exist in today’s world, as crazy and uncivilized as it so often seems, and to fail to prepare them out of some sense of nostalgia for the past would be doing them a grave disservice.

 

[CarrieH]

And millions of unborn babies weren’t being murdered in the name of ‘reproductive rights.’

Abortion was still around, just not yet widely-available. My high-school boyfriend was “scared celibate,” not by the risk of STDs or because he valued chastity, but because his older brother had gotten his girlfriend PG and had to cough up the money to send her to New York for an abortion. Needless to say, he wasn’t Catholic (neither was I back then), but he was determined to keep his pants on!

 

[OutinChgoburbs]

I think there were wonderful things and ways of doing things in the 50s, 60s, and even 70s (although the music of the 70s was kind of canned- and I was a teenager then).

I grew up in the City, on a business street from the time I was 15 months until I was 13. I had to cross an alley in a business district to go the quick way to the playground. There were cars, buses, big trucks, dumpsters, garbage cans, along with side streets that were more suburban than urban. As a teenager, what is now a very beautiful and expensive area was known as “pocketed”, meaning one block could be in great shape, and the next could be run by gangs on each corner.

I am here to tell you that “Stranger Danger” existed, and so did some of the fathers, known to us, for whom we babysat. There was crime. There were kidnappings, rapes, murders, some of the most spectacular (Richard Speck comes to mind). Part of the reason you are aware of them now is news that hits your TV and your computer instantly. But pull a search in a news archive and find out just how much crime there was, how many chidlren kidnapped and mrudered. If rape was not discussed, it was because it was shame.

I think there were some things none of us want back. I think some things have been replaced by other things we don’t want. For example, we may not be naive enough to believe hiding under our desks at work or school will stop the effects of radiation in a nuclear attack. Will storing three days’ worth of water and food for each person and duct-taping the windows get a family through a modern terrorist attack? I know people who work in the Loop (that’s downtown Chicago) who keep in their cubicles a flashlight, extra batteries, a compass, a Leatherman, civilian MREs and bottled water. And I know I have no desire to go back to black and white TV, or the typewriter.

We need to concern ourselves with preserving not necessarily the dress or the culture of the past. We need to concern ourselves with the values.

Does every kid in the US need to have every waking minute programmed in a Palm Pilot or Blackberry a month in advance? Is there a way to form neighborhood groups or relationships among neighbors where it is safer for kids to go outside to play? Does every kid have to have every new device the minute it comes out? Too many kids nowadays don’t have regular bedtimes. I, for one, think that is a very good place to start.

If families can’t eat together every night for supper (and they didn’t always in the past, don’t kid yourself), can families do it three nights a week? Can they bring back Sunday dinner, or Saturday lunch, with extended family? It doesn’t have to be sit-down at Grandma’s table (and speaking for Grandmas everywhere, Grandma should not be the only one cooking it). Crock pots of chilli, with corn chips and corn muffins and grated cheese and extra onions and sour cream? Sloppy joes with buns and fixings? Cold cuts? Swedish meatballs and potato salad?

Does the TV have to run continuously 24 hours a day? I don’t care if it’s CNN, Fox News, MTV, or even EWTN. It doesn’t need to be on every waking minute. Is SATTV and XM radio so darned important that we can’t listen to silence?

Do we expect too much out of ourselves? How often do we realize God gave us 24 hours in a day, and not all of them were meant to be filled with doing? Is it OK to be just ourselves, and not #1 all the time?

But this is from a woman who still drinks tap water, uses Windows 2K or Ubuntu, and doesn’t care if her shoes are five years out of style.

 

[Sailor_Kenshin]

Ya knowwww… Cat’s original post was about the way things were when traditional families were the norm.

Many of you who posted in this thread didn’t even live through the 50s and 60s. I can tell you without equivocation or hesitation that things WERE better.

God was proudly mentioned in schools; the ACLU didn’t rush to bar any mention of the dreaded word CHRISTMAS. We all said the Pledge of Allegiance and none of us thought ourselves ill-used or traumatized becasue of it.

No one in my personal experience was ashamed to have a friend of another race; no one thought twice about it.

Our children were not being slaughtered in gang wars and school massacres; the worst you could expect was a fight during recess with fists and bloodied noses.

Yes, that kind of world is worth fighting for. And worth returning to this nation.

 

[john_ennis]

Every time period carries the evidence that there’s something terribly wrong with the human race.

I think it all comes down to the degree to which a culture seriously values the kind of dying to self which allows God to guide us.

America has gone from terribly imperfect to even worse: never before have we, as a society, been more selfish and self-indulgent.

The civil rights of the oppressed in the mid-twentieth century were more on the road to improvement than the civil rights of today’s oppressed. We don’t merely defend the murder of the most innocent among us–we call it a good thing.

As imperfect as was the understanding of human sexuality in the 50s, it was a sight better than today’s warped view of it as just another appetite, more fun than say, eating a meal, but not really more special–certainly not more sacred.

It’s a lot harder to raise a kid today–you’re parenting directly against the culture, like a fish swimming up a waterfall.
Would any parents here deny this?

Peace.
John

 

[SMHW]

I grew up in the 60’s and 70’s. (Well, a bit of the 50’s too but I don’t remember anything about them.)

Almost nobody I knew had any regular contact with grandparents or extended relatives. Those were the people who lived on the other side of the country. The few kids who had nearby grandparents were viewed as oddities. The lucky kids got to see grandparents every three or four years.

There were actually quite a few broadcast channels if you had cable or lived on a hill. We did spend a lot of time playing outside but there were no sidewalks in and I lived on a busy street so we had to be careful.

We weren’t that afraid of shootings but there were definitely areas that we were afraid of. In the sixties and early 70’s the news was dominated by race riots and the Vietnam war. We all wore POW bracelets. We often scared each other at sleep-over birthday parties with imagined sightings of the Manson family or other serial killers.

Most of my friends’ mothers stayed at home. Nearly everyone had one small car for Dad to make the hour or so commute to work and a station wagon for Mom to take the kids to Catholic School. The only public transportation would have been taxis.

Life wasn’t so bad for a white Catholic girl whose father worked in the aerospace industry. I wouldn’t have minded my children having had a similar experience but I know realize that I actually had an a-typical life.

 

[edwest2]

Eventhough abortion was not legal it’s incorrect to say that before then babies weren’t being murdered. Women found ways to get them.

I say that much of what’s wrong in America started to ferment in 1930 when protestants allowed the use of birth control within marriage. That’s when the flood gates opened.

The 50s? Ok. So you want women to stay home with little to no opportunity of having careers, money, homes, etc of their own? Google tips on being a good wife. I refuse to go back to that. The 50s were great if you were a white male.

Being nostalgic is human but it’s ignorant to want to move back in time because things seemed better.

There’s nothing wrong with one of the parents of their own children wanting to stay home and actually raising them. Not some 3rd party. My mom was a stay at home mom and so were all of the kids’ moms in the neighborhood. Kids were doing chores and encouraged to play outside in good weather.

The false notion that these women were somehow victims is a recent invention. Stability and cooperation among people is bad for the economy. Nobody charged money to help each other set up birthdays for each other’s kids. If a neighbor kid fell off your apple tree after being warned repeatedly, and his parents had been informed previously by your parents, that was too bad. People did not sue other people at the drop of a hat. On occasion, my mom was asked to watch a neighbor’s child while they went to the dentist or similar, money did not change hands. If my dad was working on the car in front of the house, a neighbor would come over to talk or lend him a particular tool if he didn’t have one. We went to the park a lot more often than a movie theater.

My mom was not afraid to paint or mix cement or shovel coal.

There was a fear of God and a sense of contentment, but that won’t make any money for third parties. So, first you need to convince women that they were victims, so they started the National Organization of Women to strike fear and discontent into the hearts and minds of women everywhere.

In the 1990s, on Oprah, “if your neighbor wants you to help them with something, charge money.” Money, money, money. And porn, let’s throw that into the mix and turn women into things to be used and discarded later.

To my fellow Catholics:

Nothing has changed from the late 1950s till today as far as your faith is concerned. What has changed is the 1 or 3 channels on your TV going to hundreds and the porn available on millions of pages on the internet. You are being given a lot more ways to sin, anonymously, than ever before.

Divorce has gone from ‘use only in case of emergency’ to ‘it’s nobody’s fault.’ Yes, on occasion, divorce is a necessary thing but it should be rare. And the Church provides for a way to go through that properly.

Abortion has gone from ‘use only in case of emergency’ to anytime up to and including being inches away from birth, on demand. Rape, incest and to save the life of the mother I can see, but as a form of birth control?

Life has always been difficult. I want to stress, the late 1950s and early 1960s were not endless expanses of summer days. But you know what, there are still places I can go to where a father is outside playing with his son, a woman is painting a porch or planting a bush. A man is watering his lawn.

The devisiveness between men and women was created by those who did not want to heal and reconcile but to create strife. How many lawyers are going to make money off of people who refused to sue each other? How many lawyers were going to make money if divorce settlements were going to drag on for months or years? How many Day Care centers would open if the actual mother or father were to stay home and raise their own children? And how many men would divorce their wives or women their husbands if they actually had to have something beyond “irreconcilable differences”? Ever watch “Divorce Court”? I watched as a woman said about the reason for her divorce: “Your Honor, I deserve to be happy.”

The nature of our relationships with our neighbors and husbands and wives was damaged by deceit, the spreading of a feeling, not a reality, of “you deserve something.” It was a lie when Gloria Steinem stood up and separated men and women by calling on her “sisters” to throw off the chains of their oppression (i.e. the men in their lives). It was a lie when the Hippies said dangerous, in some cases, highly addictive, and life destroying, drugs were “cool” (Wanna drop some acid, man? Expand your mind.)

We were lied to. It is time to turn away from sin and return to a life that revolves around God, committment, reconciliation and hard work. Nothing really worth having is easy.

God bless,
Ed

 

[CarrieH]

We were lied to. It is time to turn away from sin and return to a life that revolves around God, committment, reconciliation and hard work. Nothing really worth having is easy.

AMEN!

 

[sanctamaria17]

OK I understand everything but there are two things I take issue with.

One: prayer in schools. People ARE allowed to pray in school (they can’t legally stop someone from praying, and I’ve even gone to a Bible study in a public school, but that’s because it was run by Christian friends of mine) but teachers aren’t allowed to INDOCTRINATE young children with their personal religious beliefs. (Actually, did you know Catholic schools were started b/c Protestants were indoctrinating young Irish Catholic children with anti-Catholicism?) It’s a PUBLIC school so you have people of all faiths there. Anyone who’s Jewish or Muslim should be able to go to a public school without being indoctrinated against their faith. (Besides, in my public school, a Catholic teacher and I frequently talked about religion, because she helped me with a project I did on the Lady of Fátima).

Two: Parents working outside of the home. Not every child is going down the tubes because parents work. My parents worked and I’m not messed up. They had to take care of 3 kids. I intend to be a doctor so I’ll be working, I don’t know what my future husband will be doing. I know many devout Catholic families where both parents work for whatever reason. It isn’t a selfishness issue, it’s a “the costs of living are rising and I have kids to support” issue. St. Gianna Molla was a working mom and her husband also worked outside of the home. I don’t think she sinned by working outside of the home, especially since a lot of her work involved taking care of the poor.

 

[dwc]

I grew up in the 60s and 70s in a mid size midwestern town. During high school there were race riots every spring. I was beat up in the school bathroom for being white. Our white homecoming queen was beaten over the head and had a concussion. My sister was friends with a black kid and was made fun of and ostrasized by her other friends.

I would feel high from the overwhelming smell of cannabis on the school bus in the mornings. A kid od’d and fell on the floor in a seizure during history class.

Earlier, when I was 9, I was playing up at the grade school playground during the summer and was molested by a group of teen age boys. In kindergarten an older boy tried to molest me.

Ah, the idyllic good old days!

My dad came home from work every night and wanted peace and quiet. He never helped us with homework or projects or anything – he did his job by going to work and providing for us. He was only brought out as a big gun if mom were having trouble disciplining us. That’s what all my friends’ fathers were like. In the home, supporting us, but otherwise completely uninvolved. Mom did everything and never got a break.

Mom was not exactly a happy homemaker. She was bored and frustrated. She did not drive, because we had only one car and dad had it. She felt isolated and lonely. As for this:

The women’s movement would never have taken off if women were so happy and fulfilled as 1950s homemakers. They weren’t happy and they weren’t fulfilled in the only role society approved for them. They wanted the choice as to how to live their lives. That’s why the women’s movement succeeded. The 1950s were great if you were a white male – that’s why so many desperately want to return to those days.

My modern husband is much more involved and much more present in our children’s lives than the 1950s, 60s or 70s fathers. For that reason alone life is better now.

 

[OutinChgoburbs]

I grew up in the 60’s and 70’s. (Well, a bit of the 50’s too but I don’t remember anything about them.)

Almost nobody I knew had any regular contact with grandparents or extended relatives. Those were the people who lived on the other side of the country. The few kids who had nearby grandparents were viewed as oddities. The lucky kids got to see grandparents every three or four years.

Elders do not have to be blood relations. Anybody can acquire some. Go by your local retirement apartments; not the fancy ones where kids are not allowed through the front gate, but the ones subsidized by the government or on a sliding scale, or the trailer park ones. In the same way, local aunts, uncles and cousins can be acquired.

 

[edwest2]

“modern”? May I politely point out that no knowledge or wisdom poured into anyone’s head when the clock turned from the 20th to the 21st Century. Things change because someone makes an effort. Sometimes, that change is caused by outside forces.

As we move daily, into the future, I just want to remind my fellow Catholics that God is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow.

I’m not trying to belabor the point, but the women’s movement was a disaster for families because it did not seek healing or forgiveness, but division. It created fear and suspicion, not trust and understanding.

God bless,
Ed

 

[SMHW]

Elders do not have to be blood relations. Anybody can acquire some. Go by your local retirement apartments; not the fancy ones where kids are not allowed through the front gate, but the ones subsidized by the government or on a sliding scale, or the trailer park ones. In the same way, local aunts, uncles and cousins can be acquired.

My kids today have regular contact with their grandparents, extended relatives, and various people of all ages. I think that is one of the big pluses for this young generation. There was little mix of the generations when I grew up. There really were few retired people around.

It wasn’t until I reached my teenage years and began volunteering at my parish that I willingly associated with anyone older than me. My kids learned to be friends with people of all ages when they were still young.

That’s one aspect of the 1960’s I wouldn’t want to go back to: the isolation of the various generations from each other.

 

[dwc]

“modern”?

I’m not sure to what you are referring. The only time I see the word modern used is in my post regarding my husband – is that what you are referring to? If so – may I politely ask what your point is?

And we will just have to disagree about the effects of the women’s movement. I understand you see it as completely bad and awful and evil and the source of all horrible things in the world today. I agree that some of it was bad and resulted in bad things. However --as a woman who has had significantly more opportunities and education than my mother and the women before her ever had, I will just say that those opportunities and education have made me a better wife and mother.

Impossible as it will be for you to ever think about or admit, not everything that resulted from the women’s movement was bad. The world is not black and white. Events can have both positive and negative consequences.

 

[Catholic90]

And I see nothing at all wrong with tips on being a good wife.

Some of them are OK, but some are utterly ridiculous!

*Don’t ask him questions about his actions…You have no right to question him.

*A good wife always knows her place.

*Don’t complain if he’s home late for dinner or EVEN IF HE STAYS OUT ALL NIGHT.

Uh, yeah. I would have a real problem with that.

For women who work a full time job AND take care of the kids, there is nothing wrong with asking the hubby to help around the house a little bit. He can pick up socks just as well as she can.

We tend to look back at things with rose colored glasses and forget the bad things. I for one would NOT want to go back. I like the internet, cell phones, technology, 2 cars, increased opportunities for my children, etc.

 

[edwest2]

I’m not sure to what you are referring. The only time I see the word modern used is in my post regarding my husband – is that what you are referring to? If so – may I politely ask what your point is?

And we will just have to disagree about the effects of the women’s movement. I understand you see it as completely bad and awful and evil and the source of all horrible things in the world today. I agree that some of it was bad and resulted in bad things. However --as a woman who has had significantly more opportunities and education than my mother and the women before her ever had, I will just say that those opportunities and education have made me a better wife and mother.

Impossible as it will be for you to ever think about or admit, not everything that resulted from the women’s movement was bad. The world is not black and white. Events can have both positive and negative consequences.

I don’t doubt that a good education for men or women will contribute to their being a good parent and spouse. It is not logical to assume that “modernity” invents itself. A marriage is not a power struggle between two people but a lifelong commitment based on love and understanding. If you read any feminist literature, it is only about power and control in the way a business relationship is.

For Catholics, the world is a lot closer to black and white. But to those whose beliefs are fluid, it is less so. Most of what the women’s movement did ended up being bad. During World War II, women worked in factories, flew finished aircraft to dispersal points and did a lot of physical labor. Post-war, my mother worked in a plant. I knew of no adults, men or women, who did not consider themselves complete as they were. The women’s movement was an external social engineering project that failed.

God bless,
Ed

 

[blessedtoo]

That’s one aspect of the 1960’s I wouldn’t want to go back to: the isolation of the various generations from each other.

Maybe because I was raised on the east coast my experience was completely opposite what you describe. And everyone I grew up with would say the same.

My Italian Catholic family all lived within 20 minutes of all the relatives. My grandmother came to live with us the last few years of her life. My aunts and uncles, and their kids, were at our house (or us at theirs) several times a month, celebrating various birthdays, graduations, etc. Christmas season was truly that: a season. The visits, the dinners, the gift exchanges went on from December 25th to January 1st.

In the late 50’s, mom and dad hosted card parties twice a month and all the relatives would come. There were barbeques and pool parties and picnics that kept our social calendars completely filled through the whole summer. We would have family caravans where we all piled into our respective station wagon ramblers and went to the Drive-In movies - kids in the back in their jammies, parents in the front with the cigarettes and coffee!

Now, I live 3,000 miles from my folks, 2500 miles from my sisters, and 1,500 miles from all those aunts and uncles. In my city, almost everyone is a transplant who has left family behind to pursue their own “dreams”. My son will never know the incredible joy of being surrounded by a large, loving family that shares all your history, culture, and values.

 

[blessedtoo]

The women’s movement would never have taken off if women were so happy and fulfilled as 1950s homemakers. They weren’t happy and they weren’t fulfilled in the only role society approved for them. They wanted the choice as to how to live their lives. That’s why the women’s movement succeeded. The 1950s were great if you were a white male – that’s why so many desperately want to return to those days.
.

Your statement is a perfect illustration of the effectiveness of the feminist propaganda offensive.

As someone who was once on the front lines, I can assure you that there has never been a more opportunistic scourge on womankind than this “movement”. As someone who participated enthusiastically in the “consciousness raising movement” (read: brain washing), I can guarantee you that women who were not at all dissastisfied with their lives were persuaded of their “oppression” and relentlessly evangelized until they were “convinced” of their victimhood at the hands of the “man”.

And while no one else may want to say it, I certainly will. Nothing good came from the feminist movement. Women, contrary to what you’ve been told (lies) were certainly able to work before Betty Friedan told them they had to in order to have value in society. My grandmother worked, my mom worked (for a time), my aunt had her own business. They had every choice available to them that we have today. I would argue they had more choices because they still had the respect of men - something lost in our society today.

 

[Cat]

I think that it’s fair and realistic to say that women do have more “power” than they had in the 1950s. And I don’t mean that in a bad way. I think it’s a good thing, for the most part.

For example, many women didn’t drive in the 1950s and even the 1960s. It just wasn’t done.

My mother didn’t drive until the 1980s.

They were basically unable to travel anywhere that they couldn’t walk to. Driving is a wonderful thing! It gives us the opportunity to visit museums and other sites, get involved in volunteer activities, shop, visit friends, go to a State Park, go to a local park or ice skating rink…

I also know that many companies would not hire a married woman. Yes, I think it’s wonderful for a woman to stay home with her children (I did until my children were in school), but it’s also nice to be able to get a job and help pay for things like college and ice skating lessons!

Also, a job gives a woman some security in the event that her husband should die or divorce her. Back then, a lot of women ended up with nothing, grubbing for a living.

I know that many women were sexually repressed, and wouldn’t dream of mentioning a lump in their breast, or pain “down there” to a doctor, especially a male doctor! My mother had the ONLY woman OB-GYN in our city!

Finally, I agree with some of the posters who have said that women were expected to just put up and shut up. If a husband abused a woman, she had no recourse to legal options. She wouldn’t have even thought about it. It was considered acceptable. My grandmother was beaten and abused by her husband–my mother has told me many horror stories about their family life. Grandma never dreamed of reporting him to the cops. In fact, the only time he stopped beating her was when the Ku Klux Klan paid him a visit and warned him to treat his wife and kids right! (And they were a white family!)

There were other ways in which a woman had to put up and shut up. If her husband was an alcoholic, she had to keep it quiet. If her husband gambled away the money, she had to keep it quiet and feed her family whatever she could grow in a garden. If her husband had some kind of sexual perversion, she wouldn’t dare mention it or try to get some help.

Yes, some women have grabbed too much power, and they’re trying to be men. This isn’t good at all. But for the most part, I think that we can all say “I love being a girl!” nowadays and really mean it.

 

[StratusRose]

I’m sorry, but that just doesn’t wash. Women were not ‘held back’ by their ‘horrible male oppressors.’ It took an entire ad campaign, cleverly wrought and relentlessly hammered, to get them to start listening to Satan’s teleprompter. And I see nothing at all wrong with tips on being a good wife.

I do not like male-bashing in any form, and I doubt people on this forum would tolerate bashing any other race.

Perhaps you see the 1950s through another sort of filter. The values we held back then were and still are worth fighting for. I will be delighted when they return.

I find your statements to be misogynistic. I wasn’t male bashing. I was making the point that women did not have many choices but to be a stay at home mom and not have a career. If a woman chooses that today, more power to her. I chose to go to college and now I get paid just the same as my male counterparts, thanks to the women’s rights movement. Now, I’m not saying it was all beneficial (i.e. abortion, birth control) but it was better than nothing.

Obviously, you did not know what I was talking about when I mentioned tips on being a good wife. If you think they are all good and true then I stand by my first sentence in this post.