For every child out of the highchair by 1950, there were certain rules that governed
your behavior at the dinner table where the family gathered for the evening meal.
“Don’t put your elbows on the table.” “Don’t talk with your mouth open.” And the
harsher rebukes: “Mind your elders.” And “Children are to be seen and not heard.”
That all changed in the early 1950s, with the mass production of the new medium,
Television! Kids wanted to watch Howdy Doody, Crusader Rabbit, and The Lone
Ranger, while the adults in the house demanded This Is Your Life, Burns & Allen, and
Dragnet.
There was only one way to solve this new American conundrum: Every household had
to have at least two televisions; one for grownups and one for the kids in the next room.
That’s right. Dinnertime, after television, became “Come ‘n’ get it.” Soon, frozen meals,
originally called TV Brand Frozen Dinners, were introduced by Swanson Foods in 1953.
Then there was no reason for any conversation between the generations. And stern
reprimands were off the table except at Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Grannie Ani’s theory about the widening generation gap and the stubbornness of elders
to accept the ideas of youngers (sic), is all because of television.
“The first ten years of the Baby Boom,” explains Grannie Ani, “were unregulated. No
one knew what to do with that generation of precocious kids. Before television, a child
would straighten up with only a parent’s disapproving glance. But these budding
Boomers made their own rules. Suddenly the practice of Child Psychiatry was the go-to
medical specialty.
“And it’s been that way ever since,” explained Grannie. “For the average 70-year-old,
it’s hard to accept that there are grown-up adults who were born in a different century.
In a different millennium!
“THEY talk back! THEY don’t have any manners! They eat with their mouths open if
they want to. And putting elbows on the table is no big deal. Pshaw!”
Hum-m-m. I had to admit that Grannie had made some salient points. Could that be
why so many elders, born in the consumer-driven, hedonistic 1950s, reject Climate
Change? Before this 21st century, climate change only referred to the change in
seasons.
Could that explain why so many Boomers believe in extravagance? Today they totally
reject the advice from their elders who suggested that “A penny saved, is a penny
earned.” All of their elders are dead or living in A Place for Mom ®.
Is the generation gap, (a concept borne in the 1960s to explain baby boomer behavior)
a result of Baby Boomer stubbornness, selfishness, and refusal to admit that younger
generations have a valid voice?
If Grannie Ani is right, that could explain the evolution of many of our recent conspiracy
theories, all of them alluding to younger people not following directions and not minding
their elders (i.e. public protests, activism, rejection of Nihilism, and an unrelenting
insistence on change). This 21st-century generation of young people is definitely not on
the same page as their Boomer elders. They may not, in fact, even be reading from the
same playbook.
“Ceding power and control is never easy,” says Grannie. “Nobody wants to give up the
ball. But the Silent Generation willingly and lovingly turned the game over to the Baby
Boomers. Today,” she says adamantly, pounding the table for emphasis, “Baby
Boomers have to learn how to play fair, not just for the sake of younger generations, but
because the rules have changed. Now it is Mother Nature who is calling all the shots.”
© Valerie Shaw, M.PR