How Times Have Changed

Remember how parents and grandparents always talked about “the good ole days”? How things were better when they were growing up? How a 5 pound bag of sugar only cost $.05? “Those were simpler times,” they’d say. I would get SO tired of hearing about it, I’d gag. I vowed never to bore my children with such stories.

Well, I’m gonna come right out and admit it: I’m 44 years old. I can look back and see the difference between today and some years ago. But it’s different from the comparisons my mom used to make.

Let’s go back just 10 years ago. Had you heard the word “blog”? Keeping an online journal was not a popular concept. Yet here I am.

How about 15 years ago? Most people didn’t have a home computer, and if they did they probably had lots of money ‘cause computers were expensive! Now, computers are even available at Wal-mart. No one is surprised to see a computer (or 2 or 3) in a home. Most people didn’t have cell phones, either. Yes, they were around, but they were big, bulky, and it cost something like $5.00 a minute to make a local call. Most of us carried around a beeper. Sure, just 5 years prior to that only doctors had beepers, for emergencies. Then salespeople started carrying them around; teens had them so their parents could hound them whenever they went out. Yet today beepers don’t even exist, and most of us won’t leave the house before making sure we have our cell phones fully charged and in our possession.

Technology sure has changed things. Have they gotten better? In some ways, yes. The internet has made research readily available and right at our fingertips. There isn’t a topic that isn’t covered on the ‘net. People keep in contact with email, AIM, and a host of websites like myspace and Facebook, not to mention online photo albums. Cell phones allow us to go out knowing we can be contacted in any emergency, and we in turn can get help whenever we need it. In the “olden days”, if your car broke down on the expressway, you had to pull over, WALK to the nearest exit, get off the expressway ON FOOT, and see if there was a payphone available so you could call a family member or tow truck. Now, we can simply call from the comfort of our car, which keeps us from putting our lives in danger.

Convenient, yes. But has it cost us anything? Take a walk to the library. When I was a teen, the libraries were always full. Students went there to study and look up all different topics in the encyclopedia. There was reading time for the little children. Anyone could just sit around for hours buried in a good book. Now, research is done quick and easy on the computer. So what do we do with all the extra time we have? Watch television, play video games, and in the case of many young people, go on undesirable websites without their parent’s knowledge. The internet has great resources; it also has trash galore. And it seems like the trash is overpowering the good stuff.

What about cell phones? It’s amazing how we can call or text anyone, anywhere, all over the world, with this tiny little cordless gadget. We don’t even have to be home to use it; it works just about everywhere. So, if technology like the internet and cell phones can keep us in touch with the world, why are there still people living in poverty, even in our own country? Why are people starving? Why is our economy in the dumps? Looking at all the accomplishments of the 21st century, one would think the problems of the world would be solved. Yet it appears that, no matter how much more we know, our capacity to care has stayed stagnant, or waned.

My children posed a question years ago that made me feel like an antique. “Mom,” they asked, “what movies did grandma rent for you when you were a little girl?” I can still see the looks on their faces when I told them we didn’t have VCR’s when I was little. You’d think I’d been raised in Bedrock. I also explained to them that cartoon channels didn’t exist either. No Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, or Disney Channel. Disney was a show on Sunday nights at 8:00 pm, right after Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom (remember that?). Cartoons were on from 7:00 – 9:00 in the morning, and from 3:00 – 5:00 in the afternoon. Shocked and dismayed, my children asked, “What did you watch all day?” “Nothing,” I told them, “we just played.” A novel concept to many, I’m sure.

It’s not just the fact that cartoons were limited, though. It was the quality of the programs. When I was very small, 4 or 5 years old, back in the days when moms didn’t work and kids stayed home until they started half-day kindergarten, there was a television program called Romper Room. It was pre-school on TV. There were 2 teachers, and a guy dressed up as a bumblebee. He was known as the Do-Bee. He’d teach stuff like, “Do be a kind person, don’t be selfish”. There would be something like 15 – 20 children in a classroom setting, and they’d play games, tell stories, and like most schools at the time, have snacks. All the children would sit down for cookies and milk, but before they could have their treat they would pray. Yes, you read correctly, pray. And no, this wasn’t a Christian network. There were none in NYC. This was a regular network channel. The prayer was simple and to the point: “God is great, God is good, let us thank Him for our food. Amen.” Obviously, the prayer wasn’t any discourse on doctrine. There was no great theology behind it. It made 3 important statements: that God is great, that God is good, and that God provided the food that was about to be eaten and therefore He should be thanked. As simple as it seems, here I am 40 years later and I still remember it. More notably, no one was offended by it. There were no protests because pre-school children were being taught prayer on TV.

When I got to be school aged, my mother sent me to public school in New York City. We had a very strict but very loving Christian music teacher named Mrs. Brown. I know she was a Christian because, in our music class in our New York City public school, she taught us hymns. Let me make that clear again. This was not a private school. It was not a Christian school, it was not a Catholic school. It was public school. We would have assemblies for the students, teachers and parents, and the children would proudly sing, “Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord”. Parents would clap and cheer. Teachers would smile happily. Children would be beaming with joy. Now, kids aren’t even allowed to pray in public schools.

Maybe I’ve gotten old. Maybe I just don’t get it. We’re advanced now, aren’t we? We’re so much farther ahead than our parents and grandparents, right? So tell me, why does my heart desire those simpler times?