How Did We Get Here From There?

My Aunt Carol had this as her Facebook status a few days ago:

"As a kid I didn't have a computer, internet, ipod, cell phone, PS3, Nintendo DS, XBox... I had two feet, a bike, chores & a curfew. My toys were the outside world. If I didn't eat what my mom made, I didn't eat. I didn't dare tell my parents "no" or "what-ever" or dare talk back. Life wasn't hard, it was life. And I survived. Re-post if you liked the way you were raised and drank water out of a hose"

I loved it!  Not all of it applies to me since I did actually have a computer and internet (if you can count dial-up as internet) and we did have a Nintendo for a while.  I'm also fairly certain that I gave my Mom and Dad a few "whatevers" but you can be sure that I still completed the task that caused the "whatever" to be uttered, even though I didn't like it.

It also reminded me of a conversation I had with my Dad a few weeks ago.  He was telling me that when he was about 6 years old, his parents would put him on the Greyhound bus all by himself on Friday evening and he would ride to Cardston (about an hour away) where his Grandparents would pick him up.  Then on Sunday his Grandparents would put him back on the Greyhound and his parents would pick him up when he got back to Raymond.  I can't imagine doing that now!  I'm already having panic attacks about Paxton riding his bike to a friend's house in the future by himself and that scenario is more than a few years away.  It's made me ask myself, "How did we get here from there?"

Take a look at life 50 years ago or so and compare it to where we are now.  Yes we have come a long way with technology, but what have we sacrificed as a society?  Long gone are the days when children could run wild all summer long and their parents didn't worry about them.  I worry about Paxton every day; not so much about him now, but about what he's going to be facing as he gets older.  And I know that those things are going to be hunting him down sooner than I can imagine.

In answer to my question to myself, I have only been able to come up with one answer: People Suck.  I know that as individuals we may not all suck, but as a whole human beings are really quite awful.  We're set apart from the animal kingdom by a lot of things, but when it comes right down to it what are we using all our superiority for?  Yes, we have used our intellect to achieve magnificent, awesome and wonderful things; but on the other side of the coin we have achieved awful, horrific and abominable things.

When I was pregnant with Paxton, Jay asked me why we were bringing an innocent child into a world like ours.  Why would we subject this child to a world that for lack of a better expression is going to hell in a handbasket?  I could only answer that the one hope we have is to teach our children to be upstanding citizens; to be good and kind and teach them to be better than the generations before them.  Perhaps by doing this, future generations will look back at ours and ask themselves in a more positive light, "How did we get here from there?"