[Flying Dutchman]

I was sitting at home today thinking (yes, believe it or not I can have a cohesive thought) about our children's generation and their loss of innocence. I was trying to figure out just where it went and why. Why are times so different now then when we were kids? Where did we lose our sense of family and community? I am going to blame technology and our ever increasing sense of "making things better".

I grew up here in Dodge. I can remember as a kid only having 3 channels to watch (well 5 actually if you counted PBS and channel 2 from Denver), listening to KGNO and KEDD on the radio (both AM channels) and having weatherman Boeman give us our forecast (he lived in Denver and called in the forecast which explained why he was usually wrong).
Watching tv was a family affair. There were no tapes of shows, no vcr's yet and no cable. Every Thanksgiving we looked forward to watching "The Wizzard of Oz" because that was the only time you got to see it. If you missed it you had a year to wait. I remember eagerly waiting for Christmas just to watch the shows. Again, they were on once, and only on one channel. You missed them, you missed out. This forced you to be with your family whether you realized it or not. Nowadays there is a tv in everyroom, more channels than you can possibly watch, vhs and dvd whenever you want it, video games on demand and the ever present internet. Our children are bombarded daily with information, as are we, that takes us away from that closeness. It has made us a world of procrastinators and allowed us to divert our roles as parents onto others. The tv takes the place of a babysitter. Children do not learn of the world by watching the news with us, they watch BET and MTV and think that is reality. Instead of sitting down with us and going over their homework (which my parents looked forward to because it taght them how I was being taught) they now go online and get the answers. Remember having to actually wait to use the phone? Remember having to physically go over to your friends house to see if they were there? Remember playing with your Tonka trucks and using your imagination? Setting up your army men around the yard and having the best battles?
It has all been replaced now. We have sold our souls to technology and replaced common sense with political correctness. I never thought, when I was younger, that I would one day be saying "I miss the old days".