A question of maturity

My daughter had a homework assignment yesterday and had to conduct an interview with me. The last questions was, “Was your parents generation more or less mature than today’s generation and why?’ I quickly rattled off something about the Establishment foisting more responsibility on kids more quickly than they’re ready for, and neatly avoided the question, but now I would like a minute to answer this one in earnest.

My parent’s generation had a childhood that was educated by the great depression, an early adulthood disciplined by a world war, and a middle and old age rewarded by the bounty of the greatest economic boom this country had ever seen. As a result, my parents were thrifty, rugged individuals who valued hard work, valued what they had, and never spent money they didn’t.

My father put on a tie every day, and went off to earn the money. My mother put a days work into keeping the house and all of our clothes clean, and good food on the table. Work was part of what made the wheels of our family turn. If they suffered, they certainly never showed it to me. Of course they would huff at the price of a new car, or what politicians were doing in Washington, but they never complained about their lot in life. I’m 50 now, and I still aspire to be as mature as they were.