Growing Up In The Media Age

Last night, as I was getting ready for bed, my teenage popped her head in my bedroom and told me she needed the computer in the morning because she has to finish a project for French class.
After I rolled my eyes, and thanked her, sarcastically, for not procrastinating, I got to thinking about how much life has changed in 100 years. My great-grandmother never had to worry about my grandmother having a 7th grade French project to complete. My grandma was too busy learning life skill lessons in school and was not fortunate enough to be exposed to a foreign language "class." She learned German and Norwegian from neighbors and family members that spoke it as part of their everyday world.

My grandmother never had to worry about my mother popping her head in late at night and telling her about a project that was due the next day. Education was a privilege that most post-war, "baby boomers" did not take for granted. My mother was the first in her family to go to college and she took her education seriously. She would not have waited so long that a grade was in jeopardy because she had not completed some work. The respect my mother's generation had for adults, especially teachers, is something I desperately wish we could return to.

My mother never had to share the computer with me. If I had a project to finish for school I had better be at the library, hitting the books. It was not until I was in high school that I had regular, weekly, NOT daily, access to a computer. When my mom was "doing her thing" in the morning, which was probably doing a load of dishes or laundry, she did not have to worry about sharing any of her electronics with me (not even an automatic dishwasher in our house).

And here I sit this morning, trying to process through my blog post quickly so that I can share the computer with my daughter. I wonder what things will be different for her and her daughter. I wonder what new challenges they will encounter and how their mother/daughter relationship will be different from what Bree and I experienced.

So..... How have things changed in your family? What is different today for you that your great-grandparents never even thought of worrying about? What has the "forward progress" been and where have we taken steps back in the wrong direction? How can we help the next generation have an appreciation of where we have come from AND be prepared for where they are headed?

My prayer for today is that we are mindful of the sacrifices of our ancestors and hopeful for the experiences of our children. I pray that God uses each of us to keep our family's history alive and that we learn from the hard fought battles of the past. I pray that the next generation is better off for their access to technology. I pray that I am able to parent a teenager growing up in the media age.

Until We Meet Again,

Drea