For some reason this reading struck me as particularly interesting.

1. Firstly, I would like to make the point that statistics, and “facts” are pretty much crap. The simply state that people polled voted the fifties the best decade. Only later do they tell us that it was actually only thirty-eight percent. Which is technically a majority because there were a bunch of options. Also, they then tell us that this was mainly the vote within people of the ages that they grew up in the fifties. Which would be the baby boomers, so if everyone is voting for their own decade, and there are more people in one, then there you go. Another thing is that most of the statistics given throughout the reading applied only to whites, minorities were left out of the polling.

2. There was a point somewhere that the fifties were a “more family-friendly economic and social environment” I think that the lack of this now is mainly due to the technological boom. When you think of t.v. back then, you picture a little black and white t.v. that gets four channels. Mom and pop sit on the couch with the kids lying on the floor. The show is “family-friendly” no sex. Drugs, or any non child appropriate material, some good polite laughs for mom and dad. There was a woman’s account about how when she was little she went to the library and the librarian told her she couldn’t check out a book because it was not appropriate for her age. The woman then laughed and said that she couldn’t imagine doing that at the movie store with her son. Well, that is the difference between movies and books. There is so much graphic, both violence and sex, in movies today, that just wasn’t present then. With the advancing of special effects and such, you can do so much more.

3. There was an interesting part about the nuclear family. It said that “modern” women were putting their parents in “good institutions” when they got old instead of having them move in with them. To be a family-driven, good mother you had to distance yourself from your own mother. The distraction of having to help out your parents would ruin your chance to have the ideal family for yourself.

4. It came as a bit of a chock when they said that the rate of children being born into make breadwinning households had reached an all-time high: sixty percent. That didn’t seem that bad to me. Sure, fifty-fifty would be preferable, but there are so many writings that make it out to be this horrible thing; that no women will be hired, that the job industry is solely for men. But if sixty-forty is the all time high, then it’s not actually as bad as it is made out to be.

5. there was a strange thing about teen pregnancy. According to this, when teens became pregnant, they just dropped out and got married. Maybe dumb shit like that helped to keep divorce rates high? On the other hand, it said that job opportunities for high school dropouts were much better than they are today. A lower percentage of people graduated from high school, but still managed to find adequate jobs to support families. Also, raises in minimum wages helped with that.
6. When comparing between now and then, you can’t really do it. No enough factors are comparable at the same time. It is like comparing two experiments; both with seeds, but the seeds have too many variables to be adequately compared; one is smooth, one rough; one orange, one grey; one weighs twice that of the other; the one that has twice the mass, has only one half the volume; and then you put one in soil and one in water, one in the sun and one in the dark. How can you compare those?