The Lesson of Hardship

I was thinking today about the attitude of entitlement that so many young people have, and how different that is from the attitude of the generation before me.  People who lived through the Depression had a totally different mindset.  As they die out, our society as a whole becomes more self-centered and more demanding of parents and government.

My Uncle Roy was born in 1920 and died almost 6 years ago at the age of 91.  In his later years, he talked about some of the defining times of his life.  One of these was during the Depression, so he was probably about 10 years old.

Uncle Roy had a paper route which was all well and good during the spring, summer and fall, but as winter set in with bitter cold, the daily route become arduous.  He was really still a child, and he decided the situation was unbearable.  One night at the supper table, he announced that he planned to quit his paper route.

His father (my grandfather) replied, “You can’t quit your paper route.”

“Oh, Pa, it is so cold.  Why can’t I quit?”

“Do you see that loaf of bread sitting here on the table?  The money you earn puts that loaf of bread there.  You can’t quit.”

Even though he was a child, he understood that he was helping to feed his family, and they were depending on him.

My father never talked specifically about the Depression years, but he was 5 years older than Uncle Roy, and I know he worked in a grocery story as a teenager.  By the time he was in his late teens, he was training as a butcher.  That did not end up as his career, but he was great at carving the meat at family dinners, and I suspect that skill was not the only lesson learned during the 1930s.

About 20 years before the Depression, my maternal grandmother also experienced the need to help support her family.  Her father was murdered and she had to drop out of school and help support the family by working as a seamstress in a clothing factory.  She had only finished 8^th grade.  I don’t know whether the factory was a “sweat shop,” but I do know she was accepting responsibility far beyond her years. 

Today’s youth are whining if they don’t have their own TV with cable and smart phone with wifi access.  It is not unusual for a teen to drop out of school and sit at home playing video games.  Some finish high school and then don’t go to college or get a job. I was visiting with friends one day, when the father sarcastically remarked that his son didn’t have to work, because he was “independently wealthy.”  What he meant was that his son expected his parents to support him.

I hate to see our society crash because of a depression or other disastrous event, but if young people never experience hardship, our society may crash anyway.  I don’t see how we can continue to survive with so much expected of parents and of the government.  Someone has to pay for this.

Someone has to put the loaf of bread on the table.