Kids These Days

This video says it all. Kids these days go through life with no inkling of hard times and tough measures.

Or do they? 

Or has every older generation since the dawn of time uttered the same words about the younger?

“People don’t know anything about hard times.”

“Can you imagine the present generation doing that.” 

My ancestors were the first to settle in this part of Missouri. My mother’s side in 1860 and my dad’s in 1840. First settlers, part of the first families of this county, they lived a life we cannot imagine. In reading the fascinating genealogy of my people, their words made me gasp at their unbelievable pain at losing so many children to disease. The many gravestones in pioneer cemeteries attest to that, the same years etched on the stones from several different families.

But not all is sad. Some of their words were sooooo familiar. And made me laugh.

Does human nature ever change? The past is a thread of experiences that we share. Feelings, thoughts, emotions...all a part of who we are.

Those threads bind nationalities and cultures, not in years but in centuries. Eons.

My evidence is small, true. I’d bet about every person in their late thirties and forties have said the same stuff as in the video, maybe not the same language or technology but the sentiments are certainly the same.

“People don’t know anything about hard times.” - said by Starling in 1920 about the hardships of moving by oxen and working the land in the 1860s.

“Can you imagine the present generation doing that.” - said in 1963 by my great uncle. “I remember when I was about 10-11 years old it was my job to go with (my brother) to the day stack where he pitched the hay on the wagon and I loaded it on. Then he hauled it to the fee bunks unloaded and I went from the hay stack to school."

Generations haven't changed much.