Pivotal historical event in downward morality in USA?

[JMJ_Theresa]

I am not a historian, but I think this would be an interesting discussion. I heard a Legionary priest say that the generation that grew up in the Great Depression were traumatized by, well, be on the brink of starvation. Then, just as it was ending, the young men of the era were further traumatized by WWII. When they returned from war, they were determined that their families would never suffer depravation and therefore worked themselves to death. Because of their absence from the home, their children grew up with an excessive identification with feminine nature (moms there, dads gone) and that has led to the lack of balance in subsequent generations. In other words, men did not know how to be men. A stretch?

Was it the Great Depression? WWII? Maybe the roots are in the industrial age, when families didn’t work together anymore–the men went off to the factories.?

 

[koda]

IMO, people aren’t any worse than they ever were. But because of modern technology we all know about things that would have been confined to small villages in the past. History is full of man’s inhumanity to man. The only thing that has really changed is our ability to destroy people and the planet more efficiently than ever before. You’d think mankind would learn from its mistakes but I see no evidence of that.

 

[Gearoidin]

JMJ Theresa:

I am not a historian, but I think this would be an interesting discussion. I heard a Legionary priest say that the generation that grew up in the Great Depression were traumatized by, well, be on the brink of starvation. Then, just as it was ending, the young men of the era were further traumatized by WWII. When they returned from war, they were determined that their families would never suffer depravation and therefore worked themselves to death. Because of their absence from the home, their children grew up with an excessive identification with feminine nature (moms there, dads gone) and that has led to the lack of balance in subsequent generations. In other words, men did not know how to be men. A stretch?

Was it the Great Depression? WWII? Maybe the roots are in the industrial age, when families didn’t work together anymore–the men went off to the factories.?

I have heard the post WW2 arguement used for the situation in Japan. Here, fathers were, and in some cases are, absent from about 7am to 11pm on weekdays and sometimes on weekends too. They rarely take holidays. Many women today don’t want to be in a marriage where their partner is absent most of the time, leaving them solely responsible for the children. The marriage rate has fallen and even when people do marry, they are having fewer children. There have been several bizzare murder cases over the past few years involving teenage boys and also an increase in bullying, school phobia and “hikikomori” where young people, usually men, refuse to leave the house at all. Some Japanese psychologists are saying that the the post WW2 generation worked so hard to rebuild Japan that they neglected their families resulting in their children growing up with a warped sense of what a family is. This situation has continued, due to the pressures put on men to stay at the office longer than the boss. Many children strongly identify with their mothers but have no idea who or what a father is. I’m not a psychologist or historian so I don’t feel qualified to comment but as a non expert, I will say that there are some serious problems here.

Gearoidin

 

[BlindSheep]

I’ve often thought it had something to do with families moving far away from grandparents and extended family. It seems like grandparents have an important role in handing on moral values to children, while parents may be too overworked and stressed. Maybe the parents of the 40’s and 50’s gave a negative (overly stifling and phony) picture of traditional moral values to their children, which the grandparents, having more experience and wisdom, could have balanced? Maybe the schools also played a role? It seems like the baby boomer generation, in general, has an extremely negative veiw of tradition, Christianity, authority etc., I’ve often wondered what caused the bitterness a lot of them seem to have, which older people usually don’t. Maybe TV played a part?