Mixed Messages for a Screwed Up Generation

Mixed Messages for a Screwed-Up Generation

The baby boomers had no shot from the get go.
Talk about mixed messages. Post war kids were the spoiled generation that inherited parents seeking to ensure them a better and easier existence than their fortunes had allowed.
The Grimm Fairy Tales sought to frighten us. Our parents sought to protect us and the media sought to paint a rose-colored picture of post-war life in America.
Ozzie and Harriet, Donna Reed and Father Knows Best created a paradigm that endured, Cinderella created a female fantasy that all girls dreamed of and few men were capable of delivering.
Boy, did we get hosed.
The lessons of the boob tube came through loud and clear each week into our rose-covered cottages. We were shown that all problems can be solved in half an hour, all families get along, support one an other and find a way out of the most difficult situations into a happy ending.
By the time we discovered this was not the case, our values were set and our destinies sealed.
We learned too late that wishing is for fairy tales, Cinderella stopped short of providing information about what happened after the wedding and family dysfunction is often the norm.
Of all the harmful lies disseminated through post war television, the worst of these was the notion that all problems are easily solved.
Sometimes people struggle for years until a solution arises, at times one never does.
We were taught to battle adversity in lieu of accepting a failed effort and moving on. Thus, we all wasted years that might have been better served facing reality.
It is not yet known whether a Jersey Shore mentality in lieu of a Mickey Mouse Club one, will serve our children and grandchildren any better.
Perhaps a generous dose of reality isn't such a bad thing.
However, there is always a danger that an overdose might very well be as destructive as none.
My mother didn't cook oatmeal in pearls and high heels. My father didn't wear a sweater and sit around the house all day, my problems were not solved within a half hour time span by input from my younger or older siblings.
I was in for a rude awakening, as were all baby boomers.
I watched Rin Tin Tin the other day.
Even as a child I realized a German Shepherd, yes even "Yo Rinty" himself, wasn't going to save me any more than that beautiful collie who rescued Timmy each week.
I wonder now had our generation been less spoiled, less naive and more acquainted with reality, would the world now be a more solution driven planet instead of the emotionally out of control place it is now?
Should television have come with a warning sign to beware of false promises and illusions?
Had we been more able to make good decisions younger and sooner would our lives have progressed more smoothly and with less disappointment?
I imagine we'll never know.
Perhaps that is the reason we are living longer nowadays.
It took us so much longer to get it, it would be a shame to waste all that information.
Good luck to us all in the later parts of our lives availing ourselves of the new reality we discovered.
And do yourself a favor and turn off those fifties TV shows.
Nostalgia is good, but delusion can take a lifetime to overcome.