We recently attended a birthday celebration for our lovely granddaughter. The birthday girl was 22 and the friends who attended were near her age. One friend, lovely intelligent and well educated, recently completed a year in South Africa as part of her education curriculum. In response to our inquiry about her stay in South Africa, she related her experience with enthusiasm and told us how rewarding her visit was to her personally.
We were stunned by her revelations of culture shock and feelings of guilt for the lifestyle that she had always known. She said after a year of doing without, learning how to manage with no conveniences, hanging onto the bed of a big old open truck rolling down dusty dirt roads (or no roads at all) and living a “bare bones” lifestyle she felt uncomfortable in the lifestyle she always took for granted. In some ways I found this attitude reassuring but in other ways, it was sad. Our young generation does not realize that there are those among us who have "been there -- done that".
As my husband and I listened to this young lady, who was raised in an affluent home, educated in a private school and graduated from an excellent California College, we were surprised by her expressions of guilt for the good life that she had been privileged to be born into. We read into her comments a feeling of guilt – perhaps even shame – that we, in this country, have so much and the people in South Africa where she visited so little. My first reaction was one of dismay and disappointment. Here was a representative of a generations best, who will be teaching our children and introducing them to ideas and thoughts that have formed her opinions of her country and I was not encouraged. I recognized that she would be communicating to her students those feelings of shame and even guilt that she had gained for her experience. I was offended by her statements and I felt defensive and yes, hurt.
I have reflected on that short conversation and the attitude that it unleashed in me. I have now come to realize that the year that dear sweet young girl spent in South Africa was not unlike the life that I and many of my generation knew and lived through. Undoubtedly, we did not have the poverty that is reflected in much of that country but neither did we live in the luxuries that are available in our country today. Our family grew our food, toiled daylight to dusk and worked hard to avoid the hardships of poverty.
I spent my childhood on a farm in the Midwest. My Grand daughter and her friend know only pristine lawns that surround well furnished homes in which full refrigerators and well maintained comforts and conveniences of modern city life occupy their world. . They know only the comforts provided by hard working parents as a result of the hard work and, sometimes, sacrificial efforts of their kinfolk. I wanted to cry that day. It is disheartening to see our younger generation ashamed of that which we have worked so hard and sacrificed so much as something for which they should be ashamed.
In my youth, my family had no car – not even a truck – only a horse and wagon. A trip to town meant hitching “old Daisy” (a mare then old and already in her last days) to a wagon on which my mother and father would sit in front with my brother and I in the back for the four mile ride into town and return. The wagon was sometimes smelly because a few days before manure may have been carried out to fertilize the fields. Young people today know these excursions only as portrayed in rerun episodes of the television series, LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE”. They do not assimilate that there was no electricity, no indoor toilet (imagine running – and I do mean running – to the outhouse in the middle of a blizzard or an electrical storm of monumental velocity; We had no running water. We pumped our water from a well outside our kitchen door and carried it into the house in a gallon bucket where the pail sat with a dipper inside for easy access to water as needed. We had a wood cook stove on which my mother cooked our meals and, in hot summer temperatures ranging from 80 – 100 degrees, she would stand over that hot stove to can the fruits and vegetables that would provide our sustenance for the coming winter. I can still see the light in my mother’s eyes and the smile on her face that expressed her delight when my brother and sisters gave her a pressure cooker to ease her burden in the hot kitchen during the canning process.
I was six years old when my oldest brother bought a used Ford Model A car and I had my first ride in an actual moving vehicle. That purchase represented fastidious saving and hard work but we had arrived, it was a replacement for the horse and wagon. In another four years, my father would be able to afford a car of his own, thanks to World War II and the work that was provided by a nearby weapons depot. He had to have a car to go back and forth to work. Our roads were simple two lane roads of gravel or dirt – although there were paved roads on the major routes under construction. My life as a child was happy, carefree as well as difficult. We accepted the bad along with the good and when the war broke out in 1941, our community and our nation rallied around the President and did what needed to be done.
Do I feel guilty about the lifestyle in South Africa? No. But, I am sorry that they did not or have not had the opportunities that we have had to raise themselves above their lifestyle and find a better way. Am I responsible for their plight and should I feel guilty? I don’t think so. Perhaps we need to help them find their way, help them recognize that they too can rise above their positions but only they can do it for themselves and therein is the problem. Do they want to?
As I reflected on our conversation with our young friend, I realized that I had missed a rare opportunity to share with a member of the younger generation a reality that she and others of her age group have not considered. We have had our time of living without the things that we now enjoy and take for granted. We have done our without the conveniences of our modern life style. I am sorry that our younger generation cannot experience a look back at those hardships I experienced as a child. Without actually knowing and experiencing that lifestyle it is easy to feel guilty for the things that those of us who “did the time and paid the price” have achieved. We need to tell them that they do not need to feel guilty, their parents and their forefathers had the vision to lay out a guideline for this country. We committed a grave error. We should have reminded our young friend that our people “have been there, done that”. Isn’t it sad that our schools do not teach the realities of our past? Sadly, it does not sound like this promising young teacher will either.
We were stunned by her revelations of culture shock and feelings of guilt for the lifestyle that she had always known. She said after a year of doing without, learning how to manage with no conveniences, hanging onto the bed of a big old open truck rolling down dusty dirt roads (or no roads at all) and living a “bare bones” lifestyle she felt uncomfortable in the lifestyle she always took for granted. In some ways I found this attitude reassuring but in other ways, it was sad. Our young generation does not realize that there are those among us who have "been there -- done that".
As my husband and I listened to this young lady, who was raised in an affluent home, educated in a private school and graduated from an excellent California College, we were surprised by her expressions of guilt for the good life that she had been privileged to be born into. We read into her comments a feeling of guilt – perhaps even shame – that we, in this country, have so much and the people in South Africa where she visited so little. My first reaction was one of dismay and disappointment. Here was a representative of a generations best, who will be teaching our children and introducing them to ideas and thoughts that have formed her opinions of her country and I was not encouraged. I recognized that she would be communicating to her students those feelings of shame and even guilt that she had gained for her experience. I was offended by her statements and I felt defensive and yes, hurt.
I have reflected on that short conversation and the attitude that it unleashed in me. I have now come to realize that the year that dear sweet young girl spent in South Africa was not unlike the life that I and many of my generation knew and lived through. Undoubtedly, we did not have the poverty that is reflected in much of that country but neither did we live in the luxuries that are available in our country today. Our family grew our food, toiled daylight to dusk and worked hard to avoid the hardships of poverty.
I spent my childhood on a farm in the Midwest. My Grand daughter and her friend know only pristine lawns that surround well furnished homes in which full refrigerators and well maintained comforts and conveniences of modern city life occupy their world. . They know only the comforts provided by hard working parents as a result of the hard work and, sometimes, sacrificial efforts of their kinfolk. I wanted to cry that day. It is disheartening to see our younger generation ashamed of that which we have worked so hard and sacrificed so much as something for which they should be ashamed.
In my youth, my family had no car – not even a truck – only a horse and wagon. A trip to town meant hitching “old Daisy” (a mare then old and already in her last days) to a wagon on which my mother and father would sit in front with my brother and I in the back for the four mile ride into town and return. The wagon was sometimes smelly because a few days before manure may have been carried out to fertilize the fields. Young people today know these excursions only as portrayed in rerun episodes of the television series, LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE”. They do not assimilate that there was no electricity, no indoor toilet (imagine running – and I do mean running – to the outhouse in the middle of a blizzard or an electrical storm of monumental velocity; We had no running water. We pumped our water from a well outside our kitchen door and carried it into the house in a gallon bucket where the pail sat with a dipper inside for easy access to water as needed. We had a wood cook stove on which my mother cooked our meals and, in hot summer temperatures ranging from 80 – 100 degrees, she would stand over that hot stove to can the fruits and vegetables that would provide our sustenance for the coming winter. I can still see the light in my mother’s eyes and the smile on her face that expressed her delight when my brother and sisters gave her a pressure cooker to ease her burden in the hot kitchen during the canning process.
I was six years old when my oldest brother bought a used Ford Model A car and I had my first ride in an actual moving vehicle. That purchase represented fastidious saving and hard work but we had arrived, it was a replacement for the horse and wagon. In another four years, my father would be able to afford a car of his own, thanks to World War II and the work that was provided by a nearby weapons depot. He had to have a car to go back and forth to work. Our roads were simple two lane roads of gravel or dirt – although there were paved roads on the major routes under construction. My life as a child was happy, carefree as well as difficult. We accepted the bad along with the good and when the war broke out in 1941, our community and our nation rallied around the President and did what needed to be done.
Do I feel guilty about the lifestyle in South Africa? No. But, I am sorry that they did not or have not had the opportunities that we have had to raise themselves above their lifestyle and find a better way. Am I responsible for their plight and should I feel guilty? I don’t think so. Perhaps we need to help them find their way, help them recognize that they too can rise above their positions but only they can do it for themselves and therein is the problem. Do they want to?
As I reflected on our conversation with our young friend, I realized that I had missed a rare opportunity to share with a member of the younger generation a reality that she and others of her age group have not considered. We have had our time of living without the things that we now enjoy and take for granted. We have done our without the conveniences of our modern life style. I am sorry that our younger generation cannot experience a look back at those hardships I experienced as a child. Without actually knowing and experiencing that lifestyle it is easy to feel guilty for the things that those of us who “did the time and paid the price” have achieved. We need to tell them that they do not need to feel guilty, their parents and their forefathers had the vision to lay out a guideline for this country. We committed a grave error. We should have reminded our young friend that our people “have been there, done that”. Isn’t it sad that our schools do not teach the realities of our past? Sadly, it does not sound like this promising young teacher will either.