The Politics of Growing Up in 1970s America

Once upon a time, I exchanged emails with a friend born, like my younger sister, ten years after me. 

In email nanoseconds, I typed what I was doing as she got accustomed to leaving the womb: 

• Watching the lunar landing and hearing Neil Armstrong’s famous words. Dad awakened us in the night, excited to witness this piece of history as it happened.
• The assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy. Mom did her best to explain the tragedies of these losses to an inquisitive nine year old.
• Preparing to leave the comfort of a twenty-room school for the frightening halls of our combined junior-senior high school.
• Overhearing grownup conversations, becoming aware of a place called Viet Nam.

Coming through the ages in the 1970s gave me a sturdy place to stand in reflection on my country. Patriotism was a given until the unraveling began with Kent State, Watergate, and watching POWs limp home across the tarmac. I remember John McCain coming home in 1973. In 7th grade I wrote a report on him for social studies. I still have it and continue to have admiration for his strength and integrity..

In our secluded part of rural Pennsylvania we children felt untouched by world politics except for these monumental occurrences. With our parents’ simplistic sense of right and wrong I came to somewhat grasp these events. They were complicated representations of what had changed from their post-Depression childhood to my Baby-boomer era.

Still, the Wonder of America Prevailed

We were the good guys. The USA elected presidents like humanitarian Jimmy Carter. He believes that words and accord could exist between nations and people. We were a respected country. Perhaps not always agreed with around the world. But not viewed as a drunk, belligerent, cowboy unruly on a Saturday night away from the ranch. People didn’t see us as ready to take on the bad guys one-handed and unarmed with the proper intelligence.

Things changed when I voted in my first presidential election and we wound up with Ronald Reagan. America the free where anyone can become anything? Sure I understand this, sure I support it, but a ex-actor at the helm of my ship? Reagan never floated with me. I anticipated the next election and the next, thinking we would recover the stewardship of a Kennedy-esque government. Then, this last election when pulling the lever meant so much. But I digress.

Facing the Changes of Growing Up in the 1970s

Several years ago, I worked for a German-owned company and traveled there several times. Any remaining veils over the eyes I saw my country through disappeared as I discussed the USA with my new colleagues. We talked about how America seemed to them, politics, and what we saw as the differences between our homelands. One friend summed it up after watching numerous of our newscasts. He asked, “Why does the democracy you gave us work better here [Germany] than it does there [USA]?” I had no answer.

I came to think we are a young republic. Maybe we need a peaceful revolution to rewrite the path of separatism we are traveling. We seem reminiscent of my niece when she was 13. Sagely, she concluded that her parents knew absolutely nothing while her grandparents knew everything. (I was somewhere between the two). The United States is a teenager in the scheme of our life. We haven’t been through what Germany or other European countries have been. We’re still working out the kinks we’ve developed that keep our arms and legs from working well with each other.

We are the gangly adolescents in the world. Yet we invade other countries with the result sometimes being a civil war, leaving a teenager’s trail of destruction behind.

Revolution? No, More an Evolution

Not a practical concept. How would you disrupt and change a child as big as the United States? The World Trade Centers fell and we watched the destruction of the Pentagon. We saw the willing sacrifice of those on Flight 93. That day had an impact on my generation and older and select younger than us. It didn’t change the culture of our world, revolutionizing or inspiring change in our approach to those around us

The jadedness in young people makes me wonder what their apathy will do to us over the next twenty years. When 9/11 happened, my niece and nephew—at 19 and 16—were destroyed. Their faith in the USA being a safe and solid place was forever changed. At college, my niece was startled to find that many of her classmates did not care one way. They were disinterested about events that changed our world more drastically than any others in our life time. She was appalled and ashamed, losing part of her goodness in hearing them say, So What. So what to the loss of life and freedoms that occurred that day. The fading of that event from our every day consciousness is enough to make me ache.

Has America Lost its Sense of Citizenry 

The cities are too large, the schools too packed, the suburbs often barren of community. There is no sitting on the front porch steps, watching and participating in the world as it walks by. Our reality is that both parents choose—or have no choice—but to work outside the home. Their absence leaves their children in the hands of others. They don’t share the family dinners that were part of my childhood.

Our family dinners were full of laughter and stories. My father would reel off tall tales as if factual drawing us into whatever fantasy Dad was concocting. He convinced three little tots that there were strange animals living in the hills and woods behind our house. Creatures magically disappearing when we would turn to look. Dad made his work an adventure. I was in high school before I realized how difficult my father’s job building railroad cars was. He didn’t stay clean throughout the day, but showered and dressed in good clothes before he came home.

Frugality  is a Concept Long Lost

Those 1970s Christmases were simple at our house—not overly abundant with expensive presents. Our parents made it rather full of the wonder of it with the meaning behind the holiday never overlooked.

The reality now is that people use credit cards for gifts that aren’t affordable or necessary. They spend a year paying for presents so they can start the process over again. The reality is that kids compare like they never used to. Little buggers are ostracized for not having the latest game-boy-z-cube-whatever-iPad happens to be on the market at this moment.

Reality is that we are what we believe in and what we admire. We no longer embrace the varied and fundamental religions that started our country. Not, I believe, because we’re a godless people, but because it has been distorted to the point of being unrecognizable. Faith is uncool. Faith means you’re weak, that you’re “one of those,” that you can’t think for yourself, so follow some ancient dogma. True faith takes true strength.

Our newscasts are full of sensationalism and negative incidents. Why don’t we celebrate the positive things that are happening in our world? Instead, we broadcast the shooting at another school, not the students putting themselves successfully through college. 

There is Hope When Americans Choose to See Hope

I look for hope. Hope rewards me when I talk to a friend about his daughters—soon to be four and five years old. I see hope for a better future in these parents, who although both working full-time, are engaged with their children. He tells me stories about what the girls are learning. His face lights up as he mimics their actions and tells me their new words. He gives me hope for a future where the kids grow up to be fully involved, aware adults. I receive a promise that their dinner table will be a family event. It will include stories of his day, making what he does exciting and adventurous.

Each generation has dramatic episodes that become tagged in your historical memory. Events direct how you embrace life, the choices you make, the believer you choose to be.

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Read: Autumn Musings