Synopsis of the issues of parenting children in a toxic social environment. It talked about this belief that society was getting bad, and it was becoming more difficult to raise children than it had been in the past. That we had new emerging problems like immigration, greater disparity between rich and poor, etc.
1.. The problem of substance abuse and addiction was recognized as an insidious and powerful destructive force in family life.
2.. There was evidence of a widening gap between rich and poor, and already many voices called for action to improve the conditions of the poor, particularly the "worthy" poor.
3.. Traditional American values and institutions were being challenged by the influx of immigrants who did not speak English and who were perceived to make disproportionate demands on the human service systems, suppressing wages by accepting low pay, long hours, and inferior working conditions.
4.. The legacy of slavery and the reality of racism lurked behind the public facade of democracy, and broke out in dramatic incidents from time to time.
5.. To their contemporaries, growing numbers of girls and women appeared to be in moral jeopardy due to the frequency of premarital sex and pregnancy, and the sex industry, in fact, flourished.
6.. Child abuse was entering the public consciousness and there was a sense that juvenile crime was escalating.
7.. Significant numbers of families were not "intact," as mothers frequently died in childbirth and fathers often abandoned families.
This list was written in the late 1800's. The bit about immigrants I find particularly interesting.
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I perceive this as an explanation of how our society is slowing getting worse. What is described as bad now would have been unimaginable then, so what does that tell us? That we don't get better but worse? That we cannot learn from our history of mistakes? It just seems that ever generation says back in the day it was better. Are we all just delusional, or is there a real meaning behind this. To be honest, I cannot not say. I have not lived for over a hundred years. But, I will say this. I think superficially we are getting better, but at what cost?
We have better medicine and live longer. But, have we prolonged the quality of life? We have great technology and we have made the world smaller, more connected. But, are we more understanding and loving of each other, and have we improved the real human connection?
I feel as we have tried to "improved" our life, we have actually degraded it. The more we have, the less we focus on each "thing". What we had was all we needed, but for us, it was not enough.
Bottom line is, I understand what you are trying to convey. That these problems were voiced over a hundred years ago, and we are still fine today. And that this just states that people hate change. They want consistency and reliability. But, when there is smoke there is usually fire. It was probably a smoldering coal back then, so nobody worried about it. But, now I think it is a full on fire.
My biggest fear is that we just blow this off because it has been around for such a long time. It is the elephant in the closet that no one wants to talk about. It's one of those, "eh, what can you do?" kind of things. Then after something terrible has happened, we look back and wonder, "Why didn't we do something about it while we still could?"
But, who knows? You make good points, I make good points. Who's right, who's wrong? I guess only time will tell. But, for the record, I hope I am wrong, and you are right. Good article.
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