Response to ‘back in my day’

Kaity Holtman

Last Thursday, Jim Fall wrote a column about how much better everyone born between 1925 and 1970 had it and how much better those generations are.

(See the column I refer to here.)

And yes, those generations are great, and we’ve learned so much from them. They fought in wars for our freedom, and made world-changing inventions. I am extremely grateful to them.

And no, this is not an attack on Mr. Fall, or any one person in particular. But after hearing conversation after conversation with many people about how great those generations are and how terrible my own is, I feel the need to respond.

I mean all of this in the nicest way possible, really…

*Oh, as a final disclaimer, my parents are the best parents of all time, and I do not blame anything on them. I’m speaking from a generation standpoint, not from only personal experience. (The same goes for my grandparents).

Here goes…

My guess is that your parents and generations before them thought their generation was much better than yours were. And that I’ll think the same about generations that come after mine. In fact, we’ll probably make our children roll their eyes when we say things similar to what you all say now.

Nowadays, I actually think the things you listed are more of a rural versus urban argument.

See, growing up on a farm, I did many of the same things that you did, and I wasn’t born until 1989.

I rode in the back of dad’s pickup. I drank water from the garden hose. I shared pop with friends. I ate, and still eat those things.

I played outside all day. I did not have video games. I rode four-wheelers to visit friends in the summer.

I did get spankings, but not many – I was such a good kid (just don’t ask mom).

I didn’t play little league because I lived too far out of town to make that trip in all the time. (And probably because my parents realized I didn’t show much promise in the athletic department.)

But thinking about some of the other “back in my day comments” that I get quite frequently … I change my tune a little.

In case you don’t remember, your generations raised our generations. You raised us to be sensitive to others — to race, gender, disabilities, and political correctness.

Your generation changed the car seat rules when advocacy for car safety became big in the 1970s, half of all children were using them by the mid-1980s, and later became legally required.

I believe that your generations were the parents making those decisions at that time.

Similarly, it was the late 1950s when seat belts became standard — another safety measure taken before my generation was born.

It was the Poison Prevention Packaging Act of 1970 that introduced child-resistant packaging on medicines and household packaging. Over the decades, coverage went on to include hazardous items, including household chemicals.

I believe generations older than mine were the ones making those congressional and business decisions at the time.

Yes, I’ll agree that safety measures and laws have gone much further than where those generations all started. But they did start before some of us were even born.

But they’ve become more strict and defined because people want to protect their children and families the same way their parents and grandparents did when their generations introduced those things.

Now when it comes to technology, I don’t want to sound like a broken record, but let me give you some numbers.

IBM rolled out the first mass-produced computer operating system in 1964. The first minicomputer was created in 1965. Bill Gates began Microsoft in 1975, and the first super computer was invented in 1976.

In 1983, the first personal computer took the world by storm.

Guess when Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, two men I would consider very responsible for the start of humanity spending so much time in front of screens, were born. Both in 1955.

Why do today’s youth spend more time inside now?

Because so many of them live in apartments or houses with a tiny yard.

Because their parents don’t make them go outside and then tell them not to come in until dinner time.

Because they don’t have animals to take care of or outdoor chores to do.

And while many young parents are younger than 35 now (35 is the oldest of the millennials), parents of teenagers or college students are mostly older than that. And most grandparents who now help raise grandchildren are definitely in those generations born between 1945 and 1970.

What older generations see as the issue of lazy and entitled didn’t just start all of sudden a few years ago.

Parents of those generations told their children to “dream big” and that they could “do whatever they set their minds to.”

“Aim for the moon, and you’ll land among the stars” -type posters have filled classrooms since before I started school. Of course if we’re told those things, we naively assume we can accomplish and get whatever we want. That generation of parents told us we could.

And then, as students my age chase their dreams, parents now pay for their children’s college education, (I missed that boat, thank goodness) so young adults may or may not be realizing that life actually costs money.

Because I believe (call me out if I’m wrong) many older generations came from big families with little money. They worked their tails off and did well for themselves, which is great. But then (again, it seems) they told themselves they set up their children to never want for anything because they knew how hard that could be.

Not to be too blunt (is it too late for that?) but that seems to have harmed younger generations more than it has helped.

This whole “back in my day” thing is an endless cycle, sure. But just remember that each generation changes things that used to be normal. The generations born between 1945 and 1970 are not innocent of that.