Set up to be Disillusioned

I woke up this morning, as I do every morning. Of course I turned on the TV.  Like most people I believe I have it on for sound, more so now that I am older than I did when I was younger. Whatever was said triggered my brain to think about television in the past, when I was growing up.

Such shows as I love Lucy, Ozzie and Harriet, Leave it to Beaver; these were all family oriented shows. We all loved them.

Television in the 50's and 60's was very happy and pleasant, or about WWII or Korea, or westerns. Now I didn't worry too much about the war shows or the western, for they were not in my period of living. In the 50's and 60's  we played games, some of the games we played in my neighborhood was making movies. It was fun. After playing outside all day (or after school) we would go in for supper and then watch TV. 

I think the adults saw the diversion of real life in these shows, while we as kids saw this is how real people live. Everyone was happy. Every problem solvable. Everyone would have a house and money. The woman would take care of the house and the husband would have a nice office job; and so on.

I'm not sure when it happened, I am guessing I was in my teens, when I realized there was only a semblance of the truth in these shows. The shows did not show the ugliness of the times, only the happy and acceptable version, which was probably why the adults found them to be a diversion from reality. When I was growing up, I lived through the Kennedy assassination, the race riots, drugs, the war in Viet Nam, the counter social revolution. These were the ugliness that shaped my world.

Cruel reality set in when I found out that marriages don't always, "live happily ever after" and getting a job and raising a family often caused chaos in the family. Money problems, school problems, job problems, all made living a journey of joy and tears. Yes joy. Sometimes through these problems the family grows and admiration for one another emerges. Faith in God, family and Country become a mainstay of existence, giving us the courage to look ahead to the future.

The next time we all worry about video games, television and movies destroying our young people, we need to look back on our era too. Too much utopia isn't any better than violence. However as a family unit we must instill in one another the respect for life and faith in God .