Dear Tazi:
I am a 92-years-old and a great-grandma, and I am concerned about the state of today’s youth and the world where they live. When I was a young mother the television shows we watched were wholesome, not the trash they have on today; our music was light and breezy and the lyrics were nothing like the smut they sing today; and our clothes covered up what was not meant to be seen!
I raised my children to be ladies and gentlemen and they turned out to be fine adults and good parents, and so did their children; but I still worry about how my great-grandchildren will turn out, what with the Internet being a part of their lives now. When I was young the birds were happy, not angry! Modern Warfare was something you tried to dodge, not a video game to play on your Xbox! Real Housewives were nothing like you see on TV! And if you were gay it meant you were happy, unlike those aforementioned birds of today!
I read your column every day, Tazi, down at the Senior Center where they have the Internet, and you give some good answers to some crazy problems! Other times, the questions people ask are the same issues I had to address when I was raising my children and I like to think how I would answer before reading what you have to say. Some things never change, do they? Sometimes, you have questions to problems my generation never had to ask but my great-grandchildren now do, and I worry about how they are going to act when they get a bit older. If I am still around when that happens, I would like to be able to offer them some good advice that isn’t dated. Do you have any to give so I can be prepared?
Signed,
Great-Grandma Sally
Dear Great-Grandma Sally:
I understand how shocking the culture of today must be for someone who was raised during the Great Depression and the Golden Days of Radio, but with time comes progress and with progress comes change; some of it welcome, some of it not-so-welcome, depending on your point-of-view. If you are remembering the 1950’s as “the good old days” you are probably white, middle-class, and heterosexual and certainly not a working class minority. For those who differed from the accepted ideal of the time, the “good old days weren’t always good”; to complete that unintentional Billy Joel lyric, “tomorrow is not as bad as it seems”.
Hey look! It's Billy Joel when he had hair!
What made your good old days good were the same things that make our current culture good: kindness and respect for others; good manners; a healthy curiosity for the world around us; the desire to make personal gains in life; charity towards others; and a sense of civic duty towards community and country.
If you seek to offer advice to your great-grandchildren, I suggest you give them the same advice you gave your own children, who raised the parents of your great-grandchildren. Whatever advice that was, by your own admission it seems to have worked, since they all grew up to be “fine adults and good parents”. Most problems that humans face are really same, deep down, that prior generations faced; the only difference is that they have been updated to reflect the changes to our broader and more open society.
Snuggles,
Tazi
Ask Tazi! is ghostwritten by a human with a Bachelors of Arts in Communications. Tazi-Kat is not really a talking feline.
I am a 92-years-old and a great-grandma, and I am concerned about the state of today’s youth and the world where they live. When I was a young mother the television shows we watched were wholesome, not the trash they have on today; our music was light and breezy and the lyrics were nothing like the smut they sing today; and our clothes covered up what was not meant to be seen!
I raised my children to be ladies and gentlemen and they turned out to be fine adults and good parents, and so did their children; but I still worry about how my great-grandchildren will turn out, what with the Internet being a part of their lives now. When I was young the birds were happy, not angry! Modern Warfare was something you tried to dodge, not a video game to play on your Xbox! Real Housewives were nothing like you see on TV! And if you were gay it meant you were happy, unlike those aforementioned birds of today!
I read your column every day, Tazi, down at the Senior Center where they have the Internet, and you give some good answers to some crazy problems! Other times, the questions people ask are the same issues I had to address when I was raising my children and I like to think how I would answer before reading what you have to say. Some things never change, do they? Sometimes, you have questions to problems my generation never had to ask but my great-grandchildren now do, and I worry about how they are going to act when they get a bit older. If I am still around when that happens, I would like to be able to offer them some good advice that isn’t dated. Do you have any to give so I can be prepared?
Signed,
Great-Grandma Sally
Dear Great-Grandma Sally:
I understand how shocking the culture of today must be for someone who was raised during the Great Depression and the Golden Days of Radio, but with time comes progress and with progress comes change; some of it welcome, some of it not-so-welcome, depending on your point-of-view. If you are remembering the 1950’s as “the good old days” you are probably white, middle-class, and heterosexual and certainly not a working class minority. For those who differed from the accepted ideal of the time, the “good old days weren’t always good”; to complete that unintentional Billy Joel lyric, “tomorrow is not as bad as it seems”.
Hey look! It's Billy Joel when he had hair!
What made your good old days good were the same things that make our current culture good: kindness and respect for others; good manners; a healthy curiosity for the world around us; the desire to make personal gains in life; charity towards others; and a sense of civic duty towards community and country.
If you seek to offer advice to your great-grandchildren, I suggest you give them the same advice you gave your own children, who raised the parents of your great-grandchildren. Whatever advice that was, by your own admission it seems to have worked, since they all grew up to be “fine adults and good parents”. Most problems that humans face are really same, deep down, that prior generations faced; the only difference is that they have been updated to reflect the changes to our broader and more open society.
Snuggles,
Tazi
Ask Tazi! is ghostwritten by a human with a Bachelors of Arts in Communications. Tazi-Kat is not really a talking feline.
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