Thoughts on life part 1

 My purpose with this post is just to start documenting my thoughts on the issues surrounding this country. 

I am old enough to remember “Tricky Dick’s” famous wave as he left the White House for the last time. I am old enough to remember Walter Kronkite somberly delivering that days Vietnam war deaths on the 6 o’clock news. I’m on the old side of GenX. Born in 1967, I remember living though the turbulent 70’s, the rampant greed and commercialism of the 80’s, the promise and prosperity of the 90’s, terrorism 2000’s, and the crash-hope-crash cycle that followed. 

Growing up, I never experienced true hard times. My family was blessed in a way. Though my immediate family was a one-income family until my senior year of high school, we never felt the true pinch of poverty. My aunt never married and worked a well-paying job. She moved in with us and helped cover rent and some food costs. More than that, she was much like a fairy godmother. For example, around the Thanksgiving holiday, she would present me and my brother with the Sears catalog (the Amazon of its day) and we would circle what we desired for Christmas gifts. Though we didn’t get everything we circled, we got enough that we did not notice. 

I realize now that we were effectively a two-income family even without my mom working. Had my aunt not lived with us, I think my mom would have had to take a job to make ends meet. My mom in fact did want to work after I was born, but she always said my cries of “Momma” when she left kept her home. The 70’s would have been much leaner had my aunt not lived with us. That would probably have forced my mom to work and my life would have been much different. 

In the 70’s, women’s workforce participation started to really rise. Though this is due to many factors, I think the stealthiest of those is the need to have two incomes to create the same standard of living enjoyed by single incline families through the 60’s. 

Part 2 coming…