<p>what I would like to see that’s still missing…more male influences in the elementary years of education.</p>
<p>Cathymee–I agree. I’m a guy and I’m majoring in elementary ed. I’ve got a classmate who is in it for the same reason–he wants to help kids be good individuals, not just learn their content.</p>
<p>I had a guy as a teacher in fourth grade and it was probably one of the best years of my schooling. My dad and I have never gotten along and my mom and me kicked the bum out before I started high school. By having that model in fourth grade I had one heck of a good year. When I didn’t have a male role model to look to in fifth grade, I had one of my worst years of school.</p>
<p>Advances in medical technology and medicines</p>
<p>My father had bacterial pneumonia, was out of school for a year, and nearly died.</p>
<p>My son had bacterial pneumonia, took antibiotics, and was out of school for a week.</p>
<p>But pantyhose was such an improvement over garters and girdles. :)</p>
<p>I do think that the internet is the single thing that makes my kids lives most different from mine growing up.</p>
<p>I agree with Very Happy. My father spent months alone in a city far from home recovering from polio when he was around 11 or 12 and for the rest of his life had an atrophied leg and walked with a limp from the disease. Worrying about polio was not part of my childhood experience, and my kids probably never even gave polio a thought.</p>
<p>MotherofTwo, my gosh, you’re right – I forgot all about polio. Well of course – we never see it anymore.</p>
<p>Childbirth! In and out of the hospital in 24 hours!</p>
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<p>I wouldn’t say this is necessarily a good thing. :(</p>
<p>Paternity leave exists. Stay at home dads exist. Homeschooling exists. None of that was heard of when I was young.</p>
<p>And – girls can wear shorts and slacks to school. I grew up in the snowbelt, about a half hour from the landmark case that ended up allowing girls to be able to wear pants to school. Unfortunately for me, that case was decided spring of my senior year, after the below zero temps that I had had to await the school bus while wearing skirts.</p>
<p>And it’s OK for people to go stag to the prom and to other school dances. </p>
<p>I don’t remember the last time that anyone has complained about women drivers (I am old enough to remember the days when there really were a fair # of women who didn’t drive) or has said, “Guys never make passes at girls who wear glasses.”</p>
<p>re pantyhose, it sure beat garter belts, nylons of any kind only keep you hot in the smmer and- do nothing for your legs in the winter, brr, cold is worse than hot.</p>
<p>Perhaps not culturally significant, but when I was a kid, pizza and spaghetti were “exotic”.</p>
<p>The availability and range of food offerings today compared to the 60s is amazing.</p>
<p>Yes, Chinese food was a very rare exotic treat, Japanese and Thai food were unknown, and no one (here in the Northeast) had ever tasted Mexican food!</p>
<p>I’m guessing there were pockets of people that knew about the exotic food. My parents grew up in Bridgeton, NJ. A little known fact about that area is that during World War II, Japanese people that were in internment camps in California were offered the chance to move to this small town, and work in the Seabrook Farms produce factory. Housing and schooling were provided. My parents were in High School during this time and went to school with many Japanese-American students. One of my mother’s best friends was part of this group. I was introduced to some tasty Japanese food as a very young girl. There is still a good size group of Japanese-Americans in that live there. kind of neat, eh?</p>
<p>I kind of like the regionality of food. Not that one shouldn’t be able to experience good Mexican food outside of Mexico but that it’s neat to go to Maine and have lobsters or to New Orleans and have jambalaya.</p>
<p>I live at the shore. Finally, people even here are realizing that deep suntan is gonna come back at you, decades later. Doesn’t look so healthy anymore.</p>
<p>Most of us remember, long ago, hardly being able to sleep, we were so burned…scares the heck out of me now, enough to visit the dermatologist regularly. </p>
<p>Sadly I hate to see people (especially teen girls) use tanning booths, for reasons such as “to look good at the prom”.</p>
<p>When I went to grad school the first time, 1973, Taco Bell was relatively new. I saw it for the first time when I was in California for grad school. I truly felt Taco Bell was exotic.</p>
<p>Back then, you couldn’t get things like salsa and tacos in the store or in restaurants, at least that was true if you lived on the East Coast.</p>
<p>As for things like Ethiopian or Indian restaurants, perhaps one could find them in a city like NYC, but even in other sophisticated big cities, one couldn’t find such food.</p>
<p>There also weren’t those many Asians or Hispanics in this country except for places like Calif., Arizona and Texas. Similarly, there weren’t a lot of African or Eastern European immigrants. I love the way that our country has diversified.</p>
<p>Back when I was growing up, there were no people of color who were TV reporters or anchors. It also was very rare to find any women in those positions. The only woman whom I think was doing anything like that was Barbara Walters, who was on the Today show.</p>
<p>Has anyone mentioned pre-made salads in bags? God, does that save time!!!</p>
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<p>I don’t really disagree with this – but we are starting to see the negative aspects, too. My parents married young, even for the early 50s. My dad was only 20 when I was born, and my mom 21. The good thing about this, though, was that my grandparents were only about 45 at the time. I spent a lot of time with my grandparents, especially since my mom went back to college when I was 9, and started teaching when I was 12. Spending so much time as a multi-generational family with grandparents young enough to run with young kids was a terrific experience. </p>
<p>We had our first child at 32. If they wait until 32 to have their first child, too, I’ll be retired about the time the grandchildren show up. Chances are that I’ll be either elderly or dead before my grandkids start college. I think this is a bad thing for families, and is contributing to the breakdown in intergenerational links. It’s certainly not the only factor, and probably not the most important, but if I have one regret about my early marriage, it’s that we didn’t start our family five years earlier. YMMV.</p>
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<p>All I can say is that there is no way you grew up in Southern California – the land of the immigrant since 1775…</p>
<p>And my earliest fast food memories were A&W (of course – with glass mugs) and Taco Bell – with a real bell outside. Of course, this was in Huntington Beach while the dinosaurs roamed outside.</p>
<p>“I don’t really disagree with this – but we are starting to see the negative aspects, too. My parents married young, even for the early 50s. My dad was only 20 when I was born, and my mom 21. The good thing about this, though, was that my grandparents were only about 45 at the time.”</p>
<p>The negatives of marrying at an early age now are that the parents are more likely to split up. Based on how acrimonious the divorce was, the grandparents may never see the grandkids.</p>
<p>As for grandparents being dead or very frail by the time the grandkids go off to college if the parents had kids in their thirties, people now are living longer and are healthier than were people their age when we were young. I know people as old as 80 who play tennis. When she was in her 70s, my mother in law went white water rafting with my sons, who were in middle and high school. She was the pitcher for her company softball team until she jammed her finger when she was about 63. She climbed a tree a couple of years ago when she wanted to get an apple. She was at least 70.</p>
<p>When it comes to our generation’s becoming grandparents, I think we’ll be nontraditional. Many of us will be spending lots of time traveling, working, taking classes for fun, etc., and won’t have the time to be the traditional grandparents who were always home and eager to babysit.</p>
<p>In addition, many of us will not live near our kids, who may settle in the distant places where many are attending college. We also may decide to move to places that we perceive as having better climates and lifestyles than we have now.</p>
<p>Yes, Northstarmom, I’ve heard my parents’ generation who left northern climes for condos in Florida or the Southwest, described as “the first generation of grandparents to run away from home.”
But I did smile just now, imagining your mom climbing an apple tree at age 70. :)</p>