Generational Gaps in Thinking
I've raved on Mosaic Minds before about my love of full-fashioned stockings and garter belts. I definitely have this "thing" that makes me to believe women should have long hair. I think that, ideally, women should be at home with their families, and I love the music of the nineteen-forties. The cars from the forties, lord have mercy, the sight of one brings me to tears. Somebody help me, I am old-fashioned.
Now before any woman volunteers to beat some sense into my head, let me just say this: I know those are old, outdated beliefs, and they'd be considered chauvinist had they come from a man's mouth. I can't help it, though; I probably should have lived during the forties. In fact, I know I should have.
When I started thinking about this issue's theme, "Generation Gap," I instantly began thinking like I assume a typical person would. First I thought of life today for myself and my peers, and then I thought backward a few generations. While doing so, I brought out all of my old LPs, the ones with the big band music. While listening to the Andrew Sisters singing their melodic version of Boogie Woogie, I danced around my living room wishing someone were nearby to jitterbug with me.
I think it was during my mini dance-a-thon that I realized, although I am only in my late thirties, I was suffering from a form of reverse generation gap thinking. My second thought was, is there such a thing as reverse generational thinking? If there isn't, I just made it so.
Although I admire the women of my generation, I can't help yearning for what I see as simpler times. I'd gladly give up my PDA for an iron that actually presses my clothing instead of just heating it up and leaving the wrinkles behind. Boy wouldn't I love to live in an era where no cell phones existed and TVs were just becoming the norm. And just imagine being able to eat grandma's good old-fashioned, home-cooked meals, only they aren't old-fashioned--they're dinner every night! And I'd actually be able to cook them!
It's crazy, yes. But honestly, I'd be happier living during that time more any other time in history. I think I'd fit in more.
Now honesty mandates that I admit that I do take advantage of my generation's technical wonders. And I am a modern woman, one who worked outside the home, one who wore pants (heaven forbid) and one who wasn't always a happy homemaker. But for reasons I can't explain, I understand that generation's thinking so much more clearly than my own.
Recently during a conversation with my niece--whom I am now a mother to--she asked me to take an online quiz. This quiz, once answered and scored, would show all who saw it my percentage of "nerdiness." Although I dislike online quizzes, I did take it simply because my nerdy niece said, "Mom, they didn't have nerds in your generation."
I could not believe my ears. Whether it is 1945 or 2006, nerds exist. After all, look at my sweet fourteen-year-old niece, or Bill Gates, or Benny Goodman. As my niece calculated my score, she shrieked with horror. She couldn't believe it, but good old-fashioned Mom scored in the 95th percentile of nerd-dom. And the results for my niece? She was at a mere 92 percent. Not quite as nerdy as I.
I laughed when, thinking that the horror of this old-fashioned woman beating her nerdy greatness into the ground, she begged me not to call anyone and tell them. As I promised her that I would not use my phone to tell a soul, I realized something.
No matter what generation we're from, or what generation we look to, there will always be an enigmatic gap that holds all the mystery and wonders each generation creates for itself.
Maybe I am old-fashioned like I originally deduced when I began penning this article, but I am also a modern woman of many faces, just like my peers, and I am a nerd. Who knows, but as the newest and next generation creates itself, maybe I'll pick up a trait or two from them and I'll eventually die a well-rounded woman ... one wearing full-fashioned stockings, who has long hair and a beautifully kept-home, while also recalling days of her firefighting glory as she does algebraic equations in order to truly prove, E does equal mc squared.