Howdy,
Recently
I was listening to a comedian on Pandora and he went on a rather humorous rant
about how kids these days have it so easy. I have my own pretty solid rant
about the current state of children’s playgrounds, but that is for another day.
Anyways… it really got me thinking about the past, present and future of our
youth. Do they actually have it that easy? Did we have it that bad? Are the
baby boomers really all that great? Who really is the greatest generation? See
if you can follow me on this whole thought process.
“Back
in my day...” is the start of a rant that I have heard some variation of a billion
and a half times. It has really got me thinking about my childhood and I have
come to a very startling realization, of course things were better when *insert
who is speaking* was a kid! Everything is better when you are a kid! You don’t
have a job, people buy you shit, do your laundry, clean up after you, you
literally have next to ZERO responsibility! How awesome would all of that be
right now?! I grew up in the 90’s, it wasn’t an especially great or terrible
time to grow up, but my recollection of it was that it was the shit *in case
there is a generational gap “the shit” is a positive term*. But that is the
problem with every generation; you remember it through the eyes of a child. A
child always remembers the awesome stuff, almost never the shitty things that “define
a generation”.
I will
get to tell Elizabeth about a time pre-9/11 when you could pick up a friend
from the airport at their gate! Back in my day, we didn’t have your fancy GPS!
Back in my day, we didn’t have your IPODs! Back in my day, you were lucky if
your car got 20 miles to the gallon! So forth and so on. My Ma used to tell me
her stories about growing up too. Back in my day we didn’t have computers! Back
in my day gas used to be less than a dollar! Back in my day everyone was stoned!
This pattern continues with my grandparents. My grandparents used to tell me
stories about growing up in the depression, riding a horse to their one room
schoolhouse, what it was like to live before planes. On and on and on and on.
So this got me thinking…does any of this shit make one generation better or
worse than any other?
I mean,
think of it. I grew up in the MTV generation, and the baby boomers give us
constant shit because of all of the advantages that we have. But isn’t that
simply how time, innovation and society works? To my great-grandparents, my
mother’s generation had it soooooo easy. “What do you mean you don’t have polio
AND cholera?!”. Every generation works their ass off to make sure that their children
have a better life than they did growing up, and then they spend the remainder
of their years bitching about how better the new generation’s life is! That
doesn’t even begin to make any real kind of sense. If you go back far enough,
then one of your ancestors will bitch about even “The Greatest Generation”.
They would say “What do you mean you don’t just die of the flu?!”, “What do you
mean that most women that give birth live?!”, “What do you mean that you don’t
have to track your meal across the frozen tundra for 12 days?!”. Your 150th
great-grandparents would think that you and all preceding generations were a
bunch of raging pussies!
With
that being said, I am quite thankful that I managed to do the majority of my
stupid shit before the advent of social media. I have little to no shame, so I
have no qualms with posting about my stupidity on social media. Nor do I seem
to have a problem posting about the stupid shit my daughter pulls, but I do
feel a little bad that all of this will follow her forever (not bad enough to
stop doing it by the way). My generation is the in-between generation. We still
ran around until the streetlights came on, but we had Nintendo (and
streetlights for that matter). We had the internet, but it was pretty much only
used only for Porn and science stuff (that might be the most accurate description
of the early internet you will ever read btw) until I was quite a bit older. We
had cars, but they didn’t have nearly as much safety paraphernalia. We had
social media, but we were able to do something without posting about every
single meal we ate. We had color TV, but we were still kicked out of the house
to play once cartoons were done. I think you get the point.
Do I
think my generation is the greatest generation? Hell no. Do I think any other
previous generation was the greatest? Maybe, I guess. But do I think that my
daughter’s generation has the potential to be the real greatest generation? You
bet your sweet ass I do! I sincerely hope that her generation can fix all of
the shit that we’ve broken over the years. I want them to not be able to
imagine a time when people blew each other up over stupid shit. I want them to
not be able to imagine a time when people died of common diseases. I want them
to be able to not imagine a time when anything they could imagine could become
a reality. But will I bitch about how easy they have it when that time comes? Again
the answer is you bet your sweet ass. These freakin’ kids better get the hell
off of my lawn and start listening to better music!
As
usual…a sincere prost/cheers to all of you that have taken the time to read
this. Just for the record, if you are reading this then you are also a pussy
generation since you are accessing the internet and you have enough disposable
income to own a computer…yeah…I said it. Pussy! Here’s to hoping that Elizabeth
can fix all of the world’s woes…might be a lot to put on a 6 week old, but I
think she can do it. Cheers!
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