How much our kids' world differs in good ways from our childhood worlds

Parent Cafe
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<p>This subject crossed my mind as a result of an exchange that I had with a student over on the Harvard board. I am floored and delighted that Harvard has apparently selected a woman as its new president. The student, however, doesn’t see her gender as a big deal.</p>

<p>I realize that’s because if Harvard indeed has selected a woman as president, that will mean that the majority of Ivies (Penn., Brown, Princeton and Harvard) will have female presidents so to teens, having a woman prez at an Ivy is simply business as usual.</p>

<p>Anyway, to my sons, things like this are normal and expected:
Women and black politicians (When we moved to our city, which is majority white, a black woman was mayor. One of the up and coming politicans in our region is a young black man, who is on the city council, and whom S meets with in connection with S’s work).</p>

<p>Women doctors. Girls no longer are considered strange to plan to be doctors, not nurses. My sons had women doctors at least part of the time when they were growing up. Some of my closest female friends also are doctors, including one who teaches at a med school and another who is a surgeon who heads a department in a hospital.</p>

<p>Women journalists; Including me and many friends, including some who have been top managers at newspapers or broadcast stations.</p>

<p>Women lawyers and judges.</p>

<p>Classmates who are racially diverse, and schools that teach about more cultures than WASP culture. Even in preschool, the kids did activities related to Hanukah, Kwanzaa and Chinese New Year. </p>

<p>It’s normal for my kids to know women who work fulltime jobs. They also have known dads who were stay at home dads.</p>

<p>We have friends who are transexual, gay and out, gays with kids, and heterosexuals who by choice have never married or had kids.</p>

<p>Classmates who are ethnically diverse coming from countries as varied as Nigeria, Korea and Bosnia.</p>

<p>And to think of activities like the following to be normal, not lunatic fringe as they were regarded by many when we were young: recycling, meditation, yoga, running (When I was in secondary school, the longest race the girls were allowed to run was the 600 yard “walk run.” Rumor had it that running too much could lead to females’ having problems like dropped uteruses.), weight lifting (done by women), eating organic food.</p>

<p>I could go on and on. It truly is a brave, new world.</p>

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<p>In spite of all the bad, TV programming offers all kinds of wonderful educational programs for kids. And dad’s not in control of the remote all the time, watching football games (that was Sunday at my house).</p>

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<p>Technology for the transmission of information and for staying in touch with faraway loved ones! :)</p>

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<p>Northstarmom - Amen. You have touched on the nonmaterialistic. The ideas are more important than the gadgets that didn’t exist back then. As a woman physician who went through the watershed years as a young adult (even the definition of legal ages was changing then) now living away from the areas at the forefront of changes (the backwaters…) I can see the changes you are talking about. These changes are being felt even in conservative areas. I was, say, 15-20 years ahead of the times here- if I had come recently I would have not been a pioneer and have had a much better experience. I think back to my mother’s generation and how society changed in its expectations for women in mine, but it takes years for those expectations to permeate all levels of society. My generation (college circa early 1970’s or so) was caught in the beginnings of change, we had to be tough and pave the way for it to be easier for younger women to not have to be as tough to accomplish the same goals. It was exciting back then, to have all the new opportunities unfolding, but we paid prices in forging the path.</p>

<p>Now there is concern about the roles of men in our society. With the balance of power shifting from the male dominated one of my younger years to a more even one the definition of what it means to be a mature man is changing. Sometimes I think current times are another watershed era, this time for men’s roles. The balance of centuries has been upset- with more women than men in college and other changes we need to be sure we truly change our society, not just make gender substitutions. I can see backlash from men who feel as disempowered as women feel empowered. I have read somewhere that a cycle of conservatism is coming since those with the old values are having many children, in the future their numbers will shape society according to the ways their traditional parents teach them. There will never be utopia on earth.</p>

<p>Enough of the philosophical musings- on to the concrete …I’ll let others have their turns (this took so long there were other posts since I started my reply).</p>

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<p>The world of competitive sports has opened up for young women - it was so different when I was in high school. VERY few girls did sports, other than pep squads, drill team, and the like. It was seen as unfeminine, especially ball sports.
Girls weren’t supposed to sweat.</p>

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I don’t think this has changed a whole lot! </p>

<p>Thanks for this post, NSM. I’m a student, but it’s always nice to be reminded.</p>

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<p>One of the biggest improvements is the reduction in teenage smoking. My high school had an area set aside for student smokers. Kids were bombarded with the images of smokers from their parents, commercials, and cartoon characters.</p>

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<p>Laws that limits teenage drivers from having passengers that are not members of their immediate family.</p>

<p>A.P. courses. We didn’t have them when I was in high school. (Not that I would have taken them, ironic that now I teach A.P)</p>

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<p>In a Bad way…we used to only take the SAT once and there were no prep courses…I think this was better. Less wasted time, less money. If every one preps and every one takes it multiple times, then the every one should be in the same order, just higher numbers.</p>

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<p>Disposable diapers.</p>

<p>Microwave ovens.</p>

<p>Cell phones.</p>

<p>The Internet.</p>

<p>I love technology, as long as it’s easy-to-use technology.</p>

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<p>Handheld calculators–which are really computers. In high school and most of college, we only had slide rules.
I was a statistics major and it could take an hour to invert a matrix…and the result was an approximation. When my D took AP stat, she got an exact answer as soon as the numbers were entered. So much more time for learning rather than busy work!</p>

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<p>Information and access to it</p>

<p>My Ds can look up ANYTHING- a speech, an old article, music lyrics, look at the stars from hubble, watch a watering hole in Africa</p>

<p>We can look up medicines for our dogs, clothing styles, read first hand reports of events, read about their dad’s hometown</p>

<p>We can read what others say about the US, we can look at websites that we disagree with, we can support causes</p>

<p>I just hope that access isn’t changed for the worse for $$, but that is for another thread</p>

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<p>Marrying later in life- having a chance to learn who you are and not get wed at 20</p>

<p>Having healthier parents and grandparents</p>

<p>Not having to wear panythose, the bane of my mothers existence in Texas</p>

<p>Not having to be cookie cutter</p>

<p>Living in Sf, well, what can I say…my D are very lucky</p>

<p>My D just got an internship at a magazine, I never could have done that at 15</p>

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<p>Marian–fingers crossed that none of our kids’ lives entail disposable diapers as a part of their world, just yet.</p>

<p>(and, as an aside, they were around when I had kids.)</p>

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<p>I am one, and when my d was young, I took her to court with me one day. All the lawyers and the judge were women.</p>

<p>One of my female law professors was married to a physician and had 2 sons. The younger said one day that he wanted to be a doctor. She asked, “Wouldn’t you like to be a lawyer?” He looked at her in his 6 year old seriousness and said, “Law? That’s women’s work!”</p>

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<p>The ease of travel. When I was a child our summer vacations were camping anywhere we could drive to but it was never farther than Canada to the North, Florida to the South and Missouri to the east. As an adult I’ve been to Europe, the Carribbean and most states and my kids have too. I love seeing the places that I had only read about. Reading about Pompeii in a stuffy classroom is one thing. Walking there while someone explains it to you is totally different. I love how most college students have the opportunity to study abroad. That used to be something that only rich people did.</p>

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<p>Women are no longer considered by most people to be failures or objects of pity if they don’t get married and/or don’t have kids.</p>

<p>The term “old maid” now seems to refer to only a card game.</p>

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<p>Ah! Love cgm’s post re: pantyhose!</p>

<p>I would ad the ease of discussion between parents and kids, at least in our home vs. the home I grew up in. Any kind of meaningful or personal parent/child talk was pretty much nonexistent. It all just had to look good from the outside.</p>

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<p>Women ministers and rabbis
(funny: my H is a rabbi, so everyone always asked me about each of my sons when they were young, “Will he grow up to be a rabbi?” I generally answered: “I dunno. Maybe he’ll get lucky and marry one.”)</p>

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<p>Our kids grew up without being exposed to second hand smoke in airplanes, busses, office buildings and high schools among other places. If they grew up like mine did, they barely knew anyone who smoked.</p>