Times Are Changing by Gerri Brousseau

I usually spend every Sunday with my Grand-Daughter. She is 22 months old, walking (more like running), climbing, and talking. She comes out with some phrases that make me really laugh out loud. She’s completely adorable. This past Sunday she took a fall in the driveway and has quite a bruise. She has a shiner and for a few days it was swollen. So, on Sunday after she fell, she was not her usual energetic self. She climbed up on my lap and wanted to just snuggle there and watch her favorite cartoon shows. I sat with her nestled in my arms and we watched things like, Peppa Pig, Sophia the First, and Jake and the Neverland Pirates (my personal favorite). Then the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse came on, and it was all cartoons. What happened to the Mousketeers? Remember when they were actual children? This got me to thinking about the cartoons I grew up watching. When did Bugs Bunny become obsolete? I remember watching Tweedy and Sylvester, Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd, Yosemite Sam, and the Roadrunner and the Coyote. Yes, we watched Tom and Jerry, which they say were too violent, but I don’t think I grew up any the worse for watching it.

I agree that some of the new cartoon shows are wonderful for teaching young minds to do things like count, but don’t you remember The Count from Sesame Street? Today programs such as Dora and Handy Manny teach children different words in Spanish. My Grand-Daughter also watches a cute little cartoon show called “Lisa and Gaspard” which takes place in Paris and teaches a few words in French. I did see her watching something that featured classical music, and I’m highly in favor of such programs. We didn’t have these programs when I was a kid, and who is to say if we would have been better for having them. But for the most part, we baby-boomers turned out OK.

We didn’t play video games. We played outside. If it was spring or summer, we were playing softball or riding our bikes. If it was autumn, we were jumping in piles of leaves, playing hide and seek, or riding our bikes. If it was winter, we were skating, sledding, or having snowball fights. I remember having to come in when the streetlights came on. In summer we chased fireflies. Last night I was outside walking my dog. I have woods behind me and I was actually looking for fireflies, but there were none. I wonder where they have gone. Do kids today play outside? Do they catch butterflies or fireflies or do they capture enemies in video games? It was a simpler life when I was a kid, way back when, but we didn’t have problems with childhood obesity. Come to think of it, I can’t recall any of my classmates in grade school being overweight or dubbed “the fat kid.”

We have progressed into a tech savvy society, which is great, but at what cost? I remember when I was a kid (and I’m dating myself here) we only had 3 channels on our TV. We didn’t have a remote. We had to get up, walk to the TV and manually change the channel. Today, we collapse in our easy chair and never get up. We have hundreds of channels and we flip through them with our remote. We also have everything on our cell phones, only a tap away. Technology is wonderful, but when do we get up and move? I recently sat in a room with several pre-teen/teens and not a word was spoken. They sat in the chairs texting each other on their phones. I couldn’t help but think that the art of conversation is going to soon be lost. Yes, times sure have changed, but I think some of the old things are still worth doing.

I think this weekend, I’m going take my Grand-Daughter outside to look for fireflies. What are some of your favorite childhood memories?

Filed under: romance