When I look back on my life growing up in Texas, I remember how young and innocent I was. I grew up sheltered, the youngest of four. I didn’t have a privileged upbringing, but I never wanted for anything I needed. There were times, yes, when I didn’t get what I desperately wanted, but more often than not, my parents found a way to provide for me the things that made me happy.
I am a member of Generation X. The cynical generation. The apathetic generation. The generation that made a point of not really caring about anything other than sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll. We wore our Ralph Lauren polo shirts (or the knock-offs) in double and sometimes triple layers. We put pennies in our fashionable loafers. We girls raided our fathers’ closets for their oversized sweaters and shirts. Guys started piercing their ears and wearing eyeliner. Horizontal hair on both genders was pretty much the norm. Straight, unadulterated hair was the domain of the uncool and anything less than a six-inch-high pouf was pitied and/or ridiculed, unless you had a mullet, in which case, you were not only forgiven, but admired.
We were simultaneously self-loathing and self-centered. We were the first generation as a whole to experience a sense of entitlement. If we went to college, we expected to succeed, we expected things to work out. And if not, our parents would take care of us.
We were the precursors of the demise of the American dream.
As teenagers, we danced our first world problems away while our parents and political leaders were busy trying to “build a better world” for us, and for everyone. Our country was starting to become more liberal, but then AIDS happened, and homophobia spread. The “Just Say No” campaign began under Nancy Reagan, which started one of the most futile endeavors in our lifetime. The drug war has been a colossal failure. Sure, there have been some successes here and there, but those are few and far between. The persistent calls to legalize marijuana – a drug proven to have useful medical properties – is still met with belligerent resistance by those who declare it’s a gateway drug. It’s a logical fallacy that perpetuates the myth and creates a sense of fear for a substance that’s rather benign.
Somewhere along the line, education began to take a back seat, while ultra-conservative religion inched ever forward to the forefront of American politics. We used to have one of the best educational systems in the world. Our children were the most knowledgeable, the most-envied. We had some of the most cutting-edge technology and other countries looked to us as models.
Today, the educational system in the United States is a virtual laughing stock in the rest of the world. While politicians on both sides of the Mason-Dixon Line are arguing about teachers’ wages, busing fees, and whether to require Creationism to be taught as a science, our children are suffering a grave disservice. Our kids are being groomed not for great careers in science or technology, but for low-paying service jobs. Schools are simply not preparing kids for life outside of high school, and it is starting to become more and more evident. The prevalence of standardized tests; the removal of recesses by some districts; the elimination of some artistic programs in others are creating a generation of people who have little to no capacity for creative problem solving.
It used to be common to sit around and laugh at TV preachers like Oral Roberts and Jim Bakker. We knew they were full of it. We knew they were shysters. But now we’ve got men and women who look remarkably similar to those very same preachers running for public office. An email sent by one of Rick Santorum’s assistants said that women shouldn’t become president of the United States because it was against God’s will.
It’s scary to see some of the people I went to high school with supporting candidates like Santorum, Gingrich, and Romney. I see politicians declaring war on womanhood, on our reproductive rights. I see corporations being defined as human beings. They say that gay marriage is a threat to traditional marriage, and yet many of these people who say it have been divorced once, twice, even three times. Joe Walsh, the Minnesota Republican who regaled against gay marriage because they were against family values owes thousands of dollars in back child support, and is refusing to pay it. Where are the family values there?
I remember a time when the worst punishment you might receive from creating a mix tape of your favorite music would be that your friend told you it sucked. These days, if you so much as have that same music on in the background of a YouTube video, you could be sued or even thrown in jail for violating copyright laws.
I wish I’d paid more attention to politics in my 20s. I might have voted more often in local and state elections, instead of just doing it once every four years, if that. I see young kids today repeating lies and exaggerations as truth because they saw it on Fox, or heard it on Rush Limbaugh. I remember when I didn’t have to wonder if the news I was getting was fair and balanced, because there was something called the Fairness Doctrine, which required that broadcasters present both sides of controversial issues. It was eliminated in 1987 by the FCC but the language wasn’t formally removed until August 2011.
I remember when a shopping trip was a big thing, and your clothes could last you for several years instead of several months. When I was a girl, my mother took me shopping every year before school and also around Christmas. Those events, along with my birthday, were about the only times I got new clothes. Now, clothes are so cheaply made, you might have to replace them every few months because manufacturing’s been outsourced to the cheapest bidder, which is often China, India, Indonesia…
I’m generally not a pessimist, but when I think about all the changes that have happened since I was a teenager, it makes me wonder, “How much will we have to lose before we forget what we had?”