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I am not a parent or have kids but it does seem like so many of my colleagues and friends who are happen to be in a constant tizzy.
One of my colleagues drive sixty miles one way through hellish traffic once he gets to the city - it's often ninety minutes one way. Lay that commute on top of ten work days and two small kids and it's a wonder he's still going. Meanwhile, I've made the decision to not have kids, am home in fifteen minutes or so, and have the evenings to myself and my girlfriend.
Do you see most modern families in a constant state of stress?
I am not a parent or have kids but it does seem like so many of my colleagues and friends who are happen to be in a constant tizzy.
One of my colleagues drive sixty miles one way through hellish traffic once he gets to the city - it's often ninety minutes one way. Lay that commute on top of ten work days and two small kids and it's a wonder he's still going. Meanwhile, I've made the decision to not have kids, am home in fifteen minutes or so, and have the evenings to myself and my girlfriend.
Do you see most modern families in a constant state of stress?
Yes, families live in a state of stress - it's called being alive.
I'm sorry, but I'm tired of this woe-be-gone "Life is so terrible now!" line of thinking, which implicitly suggests that days gone by were days of wonder and delight.
What's the poverty rate today? It's lower than it was fifty years ago, and a lot lower than it was eighty years ago, before Social Security. How's that stress over polio and all those other diseases that used to give us a much higher childhood mortality rate? All those dead kids, and just the knowledge that your kids were more likely to die then than now, might've been a bit of a source of stress, no? How about that six-day twelve-hours-per-day workweek? A general life expectancy decades shorter than now? How stress-free was life in the Gilded Age, or for non-whites in the good old South, or for women when marital rape was legal in every state through 1975 and when credit could only be had with a husband's permission? How stressed were parents when their kids were driving on roads that were far more dangerous in the past? Or going off into a world of a violent crime rate that was significantly higher twenty, thirty, forty years ago than today? By almost every actual verifiable metric, there's less to be stressed about today than there was in the 'good old days'.
I am married with three children. I'll take the stress of 2015 over that of thirty or sixty or ninety years ago, thanks.
[quote=Serious Conversation;41808588]
One of my colleagues drive sixty miles one way through hellish traffic once he gets to the city - it's often ninety minutes one way. Lay that commute on top of ten work days and two small kids and it's a wonder he's still going.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Unsettomati
Yes, families live in a state of stress - it's called being alive.
I'm sorry, but I'm tired of this woe-be-gone "Life is so terrible now!" line of thinking, which implicitly suggests that days gone by were days of wonder and delight.
I am married with three children. I'll take the stress of 2015 over that of thirty or sixty or ninety years ago, thanks.
LOL. I remember listening to the tales of when my gma and pa were first married and lived way down in the holler. Gma would get up probably 3 am build a fire in the cook stove to fix gpa some food, he would walk out of the holler by oil lamp to the "main" road where he would hang his lamp and catch a ride in the back of a truck some 40 miles to work till dark, catch a ride back and pick up his lamp walk 5 miles back down the holler in the dark, 6 days a week.
Im sure glad I can drive in an air conditioned/heated vehicle with an excellent stereo and swing by the drive thru for some coffee and breakfast on the 30 mile commute I have.
I am not a parent or have kids but it does seem like so many of my colleagues and friends who are happen to be in a constant tizzy.
One of my colleagues drive sixty miles one way through hellish traffic once he gets to the city - it's often ninety minutes one way. Lay that commute on top of ten work days and two small kids and it's a wonder he's still going. Meanwhile, I've made the decision to not have kids, am home in fifteen minutes or so, and have the evenings to myself and my girlfriend.
Do you see most modern families in a constant state of stress?
That television commercial which prefaces each vignette with "I am never getting married, never having children, never moving to the suburbs, never getting a mini-van", etc comes to mind.
Yes, families live in a state of stress - it's called being alive.
I'm sorry, but I'm tired of this woe-be-gone "Life is so terrible now!" line of thinking, which implicitly suggests that days gone by were days of wonder and delight.
What's the poverty rate today? It's lower than it was fifty years ago, and a lot lower than it was eighty years ago, before Social Security. How's that stress over polio and all those other diseases that used to give us a much higher childhood mortality rate? All those dead kids, and just the knowledge that your kids were more likely to die then than now, might've been a bit of a source of stress, no? How about that six-day twelve-hours-per-day workweek? A general life expectancy decades shorter than now? How stress-free was life in the Gilded Age, or for non-whites in the good old South, or for women when marital rape was legal in every state through 1975 and when credit could only be had with a husband's permission? How stressed were parents when their kids were driving on roads that were far more dangerous in the past? Or going off into a world of a violent crime rate that was significantly higher twenty, thirty, forty years ago than today? By almost every actual verifiable metric, there's less to be stressed about today than there was in the 'good old days'.
I am married with three children. I'll take the stress of 2015 over that of thirty or sixty or ninety years ago, thanks.
You make some good points, but after 1920 or so with the exception of some very bad periods (such as the early 1930's), most people who were willing to work hard were assured of some security, even before FDR. (This, of course, assumes good health and no major catastrophes of any kind.) Until about 1975 or so, most families could survive on ONE paycheck without government assistance and also save a little for retirement. Most women were not expected to have a full-time job even if they had a husband and/or children. Most people did not have all the luxuries people are expected to have now (such as cellphones), and yet, somehow, they managed without them. Also back then, most people did not worry too much about losing their jobs or being able to afford retirement, and young people were confident that they could find a good job. (Again, this assumes they were hard working with skills and education.) Back then (with the aforementioned exception of the Great Depression), not too many people with college degrees were working in low-level retail or restaurant jobs. People were also much more optimistic in general back then -- and I think they were also, generally speaking, much happier and content with their lives. (No, I do not have a link, but I am 62 years old, and I know what people were like back when I was young compared to what I hear and read about what people of all ages think about their lives now.)
Yes, of course, things were not all peaches and cream back then -- especially for those were were not "white" or not strictly heterosexual or who did not fit the middle-class "norm" -- but for middle-class "whites" in general, I think pre-1980 was much better than post-1980.
Oh, and btw, I can only speak from personal experience after 1960 or so, but I know of no one whose kids kids died from polio or other such sickness, and I know of no one who worked more than 40 hours a week unless that was the nature of their profession (such as doctors or business owners). Before 1960 or so, that might very well have been the case, but it wasn't in the 1960's or early 70's -- in my experience, anyway. Oh, and violent crime? How many people have been killed in school and mass shootings in the 25 years since 1990 compared to the 25 years before then? I don't know the answer to that, but I would be willing to bet there have been a LOT more deaths on school campuses in the most recent 25 years than the 25 years before then.
Yes, I do realize that a case CAN be made that things are better now, but in my opinion, with very few exceptions (for example, in tolerance of "minorities", advances in birth control, and many medical advances), they definitely are NOT.
Last edited by katharsis; 11-04-2015 at 03:32 PM..
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