An article popped up for me this morning that I get to see every year or every other year. It is known as the Mindset list. It is compiled by a group that looks at incoming college freshmen and what they have known in their lives. When you read this list, it puts your own life in perspective as to what you lived through and the times of your own life versus what the new freshmen class has experienced.
For instance, the internet has been around longer than these kids have been around. (Most of them were born in 1993). They have no idea why O.J. Simpson is famous and LBJ for them stands for LeBron James. Quite the difference from my life experiences. If you consider the major events of my life, none would know of the cold war, 'peace out and free love' or the American cultural revolution of the sixties and seventies. I suppose the Vietnam War might as well be the Civil War to most of them.
That got me to thinkin', how will I compare my life experience to Ragin' Cage when he is ready to assault the college campus? He will likely not know how 9/11 changed the culture of the U.S. He will have always had to take his shoes off and walk through a body scanner to fly on an airplane. He will likely not know gasoline under $4 per gallon or possibly have never driven a gas-powered automobile. Like this group, he will never have known a world without powerful computers. He gravitates to them now like earlier generations flocked to the television.
It is hard to imagine what he will think when talking to his Paw-Paw on his first year of college. He could just be coddling the old guy until something or someone better comes along to fill his time. My life experiences will probably not be interesting to him. I suppose that comes to all of us at one time or another. I went off to lead my life as did my siblings and my beloved parents were just along for the ride. For them we will fall off the relevant wheel and just tag along to watch as they grow older. But then they come back to us as they age, become parents and need our insight and advice, and the bond that has always been there strengthens.
Then the life experiences we have blends with theirs and we can tell them of our history with rapt attention.
Ramblings of a 60 Year Old Man - My thoughts on just about anything, in no particular order; Robert Thomas - author.
That is the way of the world, and my life experiences are part of the shaping of the lives of my children, and they have indeed sought advice as they raise their own. Not that they always take our advice, but at least they want our input from time to time.
ReplyDeleteWe must have done something right along the way.