Do you think you are lucky to have been born when you were?
You could have come into the world in cave man times, or in the Middle Ages.
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Dam straight I was. Atleast Now-a-days we have indoor plumbing. Greatful!
I don’t think luck has anything to do with it. It’s just the way it is.
I think it’s human nature to desire that which we do not have, and I kind of long for a feeling of “pride”, as it were, in my home. I am not proud of USA2010 at all. Perhaps if I had been born in 310 Ireland, I might have some clan-pride or something. Who knows? Not me.
The dice were thrown & the cookies well & truly crumbled. You know what? I’m happy with my lot regardless :¬)
I just came back from the year 2488, while i was there i went to a place called starbucks and used one of their free biolinks to connect my mind to a site called fluther. someone had just asked: “Do you think you are lucky to have been born when you were? you could have come in to the world in cave man times, or at the turn of the millenium”
some of the answers where quite interesting, some of them where very glad to have been born after the invention of biolinks and neuroscript, and some of them even mocked those who lived in our times, saying things such as “imagine living before biolinks, where a planet full of backwards mindless idiots had to tap their fingers on buttons to get any information” or things such as “personally i could not live in a world that did not have modern cold fusion synth-coffee machines, i need a good cup of syn to get me going in the morning”
since man invented fire, all of us have lived in modern times.
^ I love a healthy dose of sin in the morning.
…was that not a typo?
I feel very lucky. I was raised in a time of happy innocence. Many say that it’s an illusion , that the fifties were just as crime, drug and divorce infested as it is now but they’re wrong. It is a fact, not imagination, that people felt perfectly safe walking around past dark. Its a fact that most kids came home to mom in the kitchen cooking dinner. You never heard about kids being depressed, there were no drive-by shootings, no drug deals on street corners. Sure; I’m certain some people drank too much alcohol and some kids, very few, had some bad stuff going down at home but that stuff was rare. You actually would see kids in the yards raking leaves , then the father would burn them and no one’s house burned down! Grandkids mowed yards and didn’t charge you! Juvenile “delinquency” was smoking a cigarette at the drugstore and drinking Cokes! I wish most of you had been there to experience it.
If I contrast the years I have had and the things I have born witness to against any other time in history…I have seen some of the most amazing things ever. Newton eat your heart out!
I will feel lucky if I was born when humans have discovered the time machine,the secret of immortality,and such things.
@Aster—the illusion is in the fact that the news wasn’t as wide spread as it is today. Anyone who grew up in a so-called ghetto section of your town would have to strongly disagree with you.
Now, we know within minutes if someone has driven down a street on the “wrong” side of town and fired shots, and by the evening news, we can see it on someone’s cell phone or a surveillance camera. When a crack house blows up anywhere within 100 miles from us, we know about it. In the days before TV, when I was growing up, the news was days old by the time we read about it, on page 16 of the newspaper.
I, too, grew up in a nice, middle class suburb where children could go to the neighborhood park all day long with no adults present. My sister and I used to ride the bus for hours with no danger at all, because the bus didn’t go to the Lower West side, where crime was king and teen prostitutes died on the streets from overdoses.
I am a bastard child. We don’t know who my father is. I am a woman with healthy fear of marriage. Hell yeah I’m glad I was born in 1989 and not, say, 1939.
There’s kind of where aspect to this for me too. Let’s just say that I try to acknowledge and appreciate that having been born into a middle-class American family, in an era when vaccines and antibiotics were/are available to either prevent or cure diseases that have plagued humans for eons; and born in an era of relative peace and relative freedom and equality for women means that my life is a whole hell of a lot better than it could have been had I been born in a different time or at the same time, in a different place.
ABSOLUTELY! I wouldn’t want to be any younger or any older than I am today.
I was a war baby. this meant i was fortunate to have my teen years in the most perfect time in America. after the wars, everything was cheap and new houses were being built everywhere. gasoline was 19 cents a gallon., rock and roll was just given birth and cars changed their styles completely each year. muscle cars could be afforded and will never happen again. the cost of living was dirt cheap, the air was clean and best of all the nation was not rampant with drugs and drug dealers or gangs. i only wish that time could have been experienced by everyone. it was a time, a great time to remember and be born. i have no complaints.
Yarnlady, do you think the kids of today think we are not telling them the truth, when we describe how our teenage years were? i would love to take just one teenager today and take him/her back in time for just one day and to watch the expression of their face. whatcha think?
@john65pennington Believe it or not, there are still places just like that right here in River City The confluence of the Sacramento and American Rivers. I have raised my sons and grandsons in the same environment I was raised.
After reading about Medieval Europe a lot lately, I’m really glad I wasn’t born back then. Modern France suits me just fine thanks.
I am incredibly happy to have been born now.
Certainly. I was born in the greatest country on Earth, in a time of prosperity, ethical enlightenment, freedom, state-sponsored education, and in time to remember when the Wallabies used to win.
Pfft, one can only wish I was born in the medieval times, a time of true valor. But then again caveman didn’t have this blasted credit score system. And Vikings were among some of the first to find america, this is a hard question, gotta think about it.
Yes and no. I’m lucky that I have things like indoor plumbing, razors, a phone, etc. But I feel like I don’t belong here. I feel like I would have been born best in the 1800’s. They didn’t lack morals as much as we do now.
@john65pennington Hm. I’m a girl. Take me back to 1955 and let me learn about how I’d be kicked out of school for wearing shorts, told by my parents I better focus on finding a rich man instead of going to college, and fear the very words “spinster” and “divorcée” because it would bring shame upon my family and my town.
Nah.
I never have heard of those things, Seek. Where did you come up with them? My best friend from that era never married and no shame was brought upon her town. lol
Kohler, you left out sending your pregnant, unmarried daughter to the country for the shame of it all. i see your point. john
@Aster A multitude of family members? Though, I’m sure they were making it all up.
Sheesh. No; they aren’t making it all up . They aren’t explaining it well. No one ever got “kicked out of school for wearing shorts” because no one ever wanted to wear shorts to school. Besides, I don’t even remember when they arrived in stores.. They are not in any of my fifties photos. I rode bikes in a dress. First time I ever had shorts was in junior high but , knowing that they were not worn in school, the desire to do so never entered my mind. I liked dressing up for school.
Shorts were pretty well compulsory at my school I remember. You had to be quite grown up to wear ‘longers’ as we called them. We wore shorts all day partly because they were cheap and saved on wear and tear.
“I better focus on finding a rich man instead of going to college..”
My best friend has a Master’s and grew up in the fifties. Lots of us went to college and I don’t know one who married a “rich” man. My sister grew up in the forties and got a divorce. It was embarrassing, yes, that’s true but only in our family. The “town” never cared. I guess now a divorce is viewed as , ‘so; what’s the big deal?” As far as “spinster” is concerned. I think that word was used before the era we’re discussing. Spinster?
@Aster Clearly you are an authority on all life occurring in the time period in which you lived. Nothing could possibly have happened that you, yourself, did not experience. All neighborhoods were exactly the same as your neighborhood, all schools just like your schools, and all families like yours.
I apologise for being so far out of line. I’ll go stand in the corner.
Boy. You are really in a mood today. I think I am somewhat of an authority on the fifties when compared to much younger jellies.
You don’t take well to someone disagreeing with you I am beginning to realize. lol
I have no problem being wrong, when I am.
However, I have a big problem with people projecting their experiences on the entire world. Broad generalisations are not your friend.
I’m not lucky in the sense that my generation is subjected to the pitfalls of standardized testing and unaffordable education. I don’t consider myself to be lucky that at a young age I witnessed a plane crashing into the pentagon. I don’t consider myself lucky that I was not able to play outside for weeks because of deadly sniper when I was nine.
However, I do consider myself lucky that I am able to speak face to face with my brother in Afghanistan. I am lucky that my best friend’s and my brother’s sexuality is more accepted in this year than it was 100 years ago. I am lucky to be able to express my thoughts and beliefs on websites like this one and not be condemned for it.
(I also hate that my mom is always telling me that the movie theater when she was a kid cost 75 cents…now it costs $11.) :/
@Seek_Kolinahr ok; I will try to stay away from “broad generalizations. ” Let me think…..ok; there were no naked breasts on tv then. No ecstasy? I’m trying. Less working mothers? No “sex offender registry.” American crime rates should be available on a search engine to determine if crime is worse now than in 1950 or less. Per capita, of course. Percentage of children living with no father in the home, searchable. American divorce rates, searchable. This would be interesting: prison populations . Or, were there more people in prison then compared to now, adjusting for population increase. That would be a goodie. Church attendance then versus now. What percentage of Americans attended church in 1950 versus 2009?
Percentage of Americans being treated for depression in 1950 as opposed to ‘09? Percentage of American high school students finishing high school in 1950 versus in ‘09?
The prison thing would only interest me if we compared only those arrested today for laws that were actually in effect in 1950. More laws = more laws broken.
“As state prison populations fell, so did the violent crime rate, which provides further evidence that increased incarceration does not mean more public safety. Concurrent with the 5.3 percent fall in violent crime in 2008–2009, state prison populations decreased 0.2 percent” source
”According to data collected by the United States Justice Department, from 1978 to 1996, the number of violent offenders entering our nation’s prisons doubled (from 43,733 to 98,672 inmates); the number of nonviolent offenders tripled (from 83,721 to 261,796 inmates) and the number of drug offenders increased sevenfold (from 14,241 to 114,071 inmates). As such, 77% of the growth in intake to America’s state and federal prisons between 1978 and 1996 was accounted for by nonviolent offender” source
Church attendance means nothing. I’d rather see fewer people giving their money away to tax-free superstition-peddling.
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders was first released in 1952. It did not include Depression among its recognized medical disorders until its third revision in 1989. If you had Depression in 1950, you were screwed.
High school graduation rates have rose significantly across the board since 1950.
But you’re right – the divorce rate is higher, but so is the age at marriage, and the marriage rate is significantly lower, as well as the fertility rate, and poverty in families is lower. This tells me that women are no longer dependent upon a husband to successfully raise a family, and have the freedom to choose whether they wish to be married, and when, and to whom.
Good about the divorce rate , then.
But aren’t there statistics that tell us that when there is a divorce, most women’s standard of living plummets while the man’s continues to climb? My daughter is a nurse at a cardio vascular clinic. She said they are constantly hiring fifty and sixty something year old women who have gotten divorced. It’s seems reasonable to think they were dumped as much as they “left the marriage, not needing a man’s support.”
@Aster: Maybe you were born in a part of the country or into a family where those things didn’t matter. My mother was born in 1954 into the upper class. When she had a child out of wedlock, she plummeted from “high society” just because of that. If she had been born into middle or lower class, it would have been more acceptable. if she had been born twenty years later and so tried to have a child out of wedlock now it would have been more acceptable. I think both you and @Seek_Kolinahr are correct, but in different ways. Yes, there were a number of families and areas where it was unacceptable for women to do a lot of things and act in certain ways. However, there were also families and areas where those things didn’t matter as much.
I would also like to point out that it is different to be born into an era than it is to be already living there. There are different standards for different generations. That’s why I used 1939 as an example of a time that I would not have wanted to be born because that would mean I would have become an adult in the fifties. However, If I had been born in the fifties, I do not think that would be so bad. I look at the middle aged folks I know who were born in the fifties and they buy into the whole women’s roles, men’s roles thing much less than their parents who were born in the twenties and thirties.
Although, I am very glad to not be living in a time when people ask me if my boyfriend let me borrow the car if I am driving by myself. My momma has some stories about her Jeep-driving days.
@KatawaGrey I agree with you on this one. My mother wasn’t allowed to be married in the church because she was divorced, my sister had to give up her first two babies because she wasn’t married. Sure, there were exceptions, such as women physicists, philosophers, musicians and astronomers, but they were few and far between.
@YARNLADY: I actually have a friend whose biological mother was a teenager who got pregnant. She was adopted by a single woman in the fifties. My mother and I have speculated many long hours as to how a single woman could legally adopt a child during that time period. When I hear of stories like that or those of your mother and sister, I am wildly happy to have been born now.
@ducky_dnl
“I feel like I would have been born best in the 1800’s. They didn’t lack morals as much as we do now.”
They didn’t lack morals except for maybe that whole slavery thing they had going on then.
@lillycoyote: Don’t forget the whole “women as slaves to husbands” thing too.
@lillycoyote and @ducky_dnl Prostitution was also more prolific, at least in London. Beating children was an acceptable punishment too. The 1800s, like every other era in history, did not have as advanced morality as we enjoy today – they just didn’t talk about it.
Not beating kids is half the problem with the spoiled generation we have now. If comparing the morals of now with 15 year olds giving BJ’s and HJ’s like they were handshakes to the morals of yesteryear with the whole waiting till married to have sex and actually punishing crimes with the appropriate sentences shows our “advancement”, then I’ll hate waking up tomorrow.
Clearly all of the problems in the world today are related to 15 year olds having sex. We’ll ignore the fact that it is perfectly legal for 15 year olds to get married with parental or judicial consent in 12 states, and most other states start at 16. Hell, Massachusetts allows 12 year old females to marry.
@Moegitto: Actually, a number of kids still get beaten today by their parents. It’s not making them better people, it’s destroying them, both physically and emotionally. The “morals” of which you speak often precluded inter-racial marriage my mother was told to pity the one inter-racial girl at her school when she was growing up, gay marriage, inter-faith marriage, and, well, just about any marriage that wasn’t between two people of different sexes and the same class. Also, while women may not have been legally the property of their husbands, they were expected to do exactly as he wanted whenever he wanted. It is not uncommon for women of a certain age to detest sex simply because they were taught that they could not enjoy sex. Often, women would just lie there while their husbands would flop around on top of them. Children were seen and not heard and parents were not arrested or punished for using physical force force against their children though, according to you, it’s perfectly okay to beat children.
@Seek_Kolinahr: That reminded me of something that happened in my freshman high school English class. My teacher was saying it was okay for Romeo and Juliet to have sex because they were married even though they were 14. Meanwhile, the room full of 14-year-olds were vehemently disagreeing with her because we all thought 14-year-olds shouldn’t be having sex at all.
beaten up is a term from fighting. Spanking is what I mean, hitting someone weaker than you is cowardly I agree, but letting kids walk all over you isn’t helping at all. you seriously can’t say that telling a child that he’s bad and pointing to a corner is helping them. That’s the start of the problem, I bet if you ask anybody that is in a good situation now that’s between the ages of 25 to 100 if they were spanked when they were little, I bet they say yes. Actually, science has proven that verbal abuse (which telling a child they’re bad, cursing at them, pretty much talking to them in a demeaning way) is far more counter-productive than any means of parenting. I can tell you from first hand experience that getting a slap on the hind quarters is way more fun then being a 5 year old being told that someone wishes you were never born.
And please stop being so straight and low minded when you answer. If someone uses a part of something as an example, it doesn’t mean they agree with the other half. I’m African-american and I really don’t want to get into the whole inter-racial marriage thing because that’s a whole different debate, and so is women rights.
@Moegitto: I agree with you that kids are not disciplined enough these days but wanting greater discipline is not at all the same as wanting to have been born in a different time. If you want to have been born in another time because of one aspect of that time, it’s not like the powers that be are going to say, “Well, you only like this one part so you don’t have to deal with all the other stuff that goes on here.” You were answering a different question than the one asked here.
@KatawaGrey and @FireMadeFlesh Yeah, all that too. I just decided to pick one and go with it, and slavery seemed to be a winner. There’s quite a catalog though. Beating your wife, beating your kids, making men, women and children work in factories for 12 hours plus a day, 6 to 7 days a week, workhouses, the slaughter and forcible relocation of Native Americans… pretty long list.
Answer this question 
