Friends, I’ve been working too hard. Time for a little relaxation. Lots of Vacation Bible Schools going on. Puts me in a mind to reminisce and remark about a few changes in family life. So….back to my granddad’s table. Long table with long benches. You could scrunch lots of kids on those benches. We knelt by those benches to pray—that has evolved into “saying grace” before meals. My generation dropped that kind of stuff. We moms went to the job place leaving kids with pop-up’s and egg-o’s. Parents were relieved when their teen turned sixteen, so they could buy another car so there was another driver so he could drop off little sister on his way to school. She rode home with a neighbor and snacked, ruining supper time and Mr. Sixteen won’t be home anyway because he is mowing Mr. Brown’s yard after football practice to make money to pay for the dent in Dad’s fender and he will pick up the pizza on the way home because he is starving. Any of that sound familiar?
Oh, Yes, Mr. and Mrs. Me, we really did it! We showed our grandparents how to take care of families. We moved to the big town. We bought houses with two car garages. We made room in the yard for a car for each sixteen (plus) child and we put our kids in them. We still went to church—each in his own car. No more living in the country driving twenty minutes to church, all in one car! Can you imagine that? Families riding together in the same car after sharing only one bathroom! (I’m not saying there were no grumps among us.)
Hey, does that sound like I’m relaxing? Just a little cynicism. Poking a bit of fun at people like ME who started this age of the modern family. Lots of whom we now label dysfunctional. Oh my, oh me! Isn’t it great that we have grown beyond the old fashioned customs of the fifties!
(You all can give me a swift kick and send me back to my Bible studies!)
