America 1950 vs. America 2012 (sell, employment, job, prices)

[NCN]

I didn't get to the list but as some said, "I have received many e-mails like this." I remember 1950 as being a very conservative time and life was hard for many people. Life was also very different. I became five years old in 1950. My day was spent on the 100 acre farm my father had bought a few years before I was born. I was born in the bedroom of our home when the midwife came a couple of days before to make sure she was there for the occasion. My mother kept the farm going and took care of us while my father went to his day job to get money to pay for the farm. We had several hives of bees, many grapes, fields of corn, and we grew most of the vegetables we ate. Mom canned the extra to be used in the Winter. If we needed furniture or major purchases such as a car, Dad would get someone to cut down some timber to pay for them. Dad killed two hogs and a calf for meat every year and Mom canned the meat for future use. And we had chickens for eggs and to kill for Sunday dinner. Fried chicken is good cold. Mom did not cook on Sunday and stores did not open on Sunday. So Mom spent much of Saturday cooking food to feed a family of five children and two adults. The early part of Saturday was going shopping downtown where we would run into all the neighbors shopping too because most families had only one car and that was the day it was available to go shopping.

I think that was the year we got electricity in our rural area. Dad had the house wired and a washing machine and refridgerator waiting to begin using the day the electricity was turned on.

We had a swimming hole that we had used rocks to create. We climbed trees, went fishing on the river that ran in the center of our farm, and I can shoot a leaf off a tree with a beebee gun. And we played in the natural mica deposits on our property.

Our doors were never locked even when we left home. There were two guns above the front door if the person outside was not welcome. When neighbors came to your home, they did not bother knocking; they just pushed the door open and said hello. And we would say come in. We usually knew they were coming though because Dad had several hunting dogs. Squirrels and rabbits were rare meats we got when he and my brothers went hunting. Mom also cooked turtle, possum, and swore she would never cook any more frog legs. She did not like things moving when she cooked them. I really don't care to eat much meat beyond chicken, beef and pork. Stewed beef is my favorite with Mom's good biscuits.

We had a cellar where we stored apples and cabbage for the Winter. We heated and cooked with wood.

I am curious why there are so many hostile posts about this. It was a wonderful life. I would not want to go back to it as an adult because I am happy with my life now; but as a child, I cannot think of having a better life. It was fun, healthy, interesting; but the life of my parents would wear me out now. Maybe that is why my grandparents lived to be in their 80's and 90's. They worked hard, lived peaceful lives and ate natural foods.

[pvande55]

NCN, sounds like you had a relatively sheltered life. Most people I knew who grew up on farms talk about the chores they did. There is even the story about a farm kid joining the marines and talking about getting to sleep in till 5:30.

[Hesky]

Its clear that the author of that article wasn't interested in writing a serious comparison between 1950 and 2012, and simply wanted to show how much things suck today. He reached his conclusion before getting his facts. that alone makes this article worthless.

[GreggT]

Originally Posted by Grandpa Pipes

While the cars/trucks of the 1950's were nice to look at in fact due to the crude simplicity of the cars/trucks of that time all were death traps compared to the cars we drive today.

And they started to fall apart after about 20,000 miles, you almost had to buy a new one every couple of years. When you did buy one it always took quite a few trips back to the dealer to straighten out the rattles and mechanical issues.

[mysticaltyger]

The one thing I think they had mostly right in the 1950s were the taboos against having kids out of wedlock and divorce. Granted, i think they went too far with this, and women got the brunt of the disapproval for being pregnant without being married. But with an out of wedlock birth rate around 40% today, we are high risk of creating a permanent underclass. The middle class and higher get married. The working class and poor have kids out of wedlock. Typically, the working class & poor have more kids than the middle class & rich.......and I don't like the implications of that.

Forget Juno. Out-of-wedlock births are a national catastrophe. - Slate Magazine

[pekemom]

I can see good and bad with both times. I was a very young child in 1950. My future husband got polio the next year, just before the vaccine was
sent out to schools, I got mine in Kindergarten. Luckily he spent only some time in an iron lung and a brace on his leg until jr. high. He is a senior
citizen now and has always had a limp ever since I've known him. (We've been married nearly 42 years). He was more fortunate than many other polio victims.

Today kids are afraid to be shot at school, all doors better be locked, bullying on such a scale that it leads to suicide....there are many fears today.

I think many "bad" things went on that I just didn't know about. I thought everyone lived like me, a nice family, no alcoholism, no domestic violence, etc.

War, that always seems to be in the picture....


Still, I am glad to be living in 2012, would choose it over 1950.

[QuixoticHobbit]

Originally Posted by cpg35223

What's really a joke is "In 1950, the American people had a great love for the U.S. Constitution." Unless of course you were black or didn't cotton to Joseph McCarthy.

Or you were gay seeking equality and the right to marry your same sex soulmate.

Yes they loved the Constitution - the same revisionist one that the Conservative and evangelicals love today that minimizes or removes completely separation of church and state and that protects the minority from the tyranny of the majority

[Bayarea4]

I read with particular interest the highlighted story about the Hoke School District 4-year-old whose school lunch was confiscated by the school because it "didn't pass USDA inspection." The truth is a little more complicated. I Googled the incident It was a teacher, not the school, that confiscated the lunch. Apparently the teachers monitor the lunches of kindergartners to make sure they are receiving foods from the different groups and, if not, appropriate foods are offered to the child.

I remember being an elementary school child in the 1950's when we got complete hot meals every day for 25 cents prepared by ladies in white uniforms with hair nets. But I often packed my own lunch and, as a latch key kid, had no adult supervision when I was doing so. One day my idea of a good lunch was to pack a handful of buttered saltine crackers. That was all I had to eat at school that day. Now I am against excessive government intervention as much as anyone, but I kind of wish a teacher had noticed that I wasn't being fed properly and had done something about it.

West Hoke Elementary Teacher Involved in School Lunch Incident Resigns

[BuffaloTransplant]

Originally Posted by jimhcom

The major difference is not economic, it is cultural.
In 1950 people lived their lives with morals and principals that are foreign to people today.
In 1950 most people left their doors unlocked and the keys in the ignition of their cars.
Today the majority of people’s morals are only dictated by what they can get away with.
Personally, I would return to those days in a heartbeat if I could.

I was born then and grew up in the 50s and 60s. I agree.

[NCN]

One thing that is much different now from 1950 is the way health insurance is calculated. In the past years I have sometimes had three insurance policies and still had to end up paying 20% out of pocket. Back in 1950, if you had three health policies and each one paid a certain amount on a procedure, you could end up making money going to the hospital. For instance if you had three policies and each one paid a certain amount for taking out the gall bladder, each policy would pay that amount plus they had certain amounts per day for the hospital stay, etc. Each policy contracted to pay that amount and did. When my dad went to the hospital and passed away from cancer, the hospital bill was paid and my mother got money back for the overpayments.

And yes, we didn't even have a way to lock our doors when we left home. It wasn't necessary.