Everything Always Changes And That's Not a Bad Thing

There is a political ad rolling around Montana right now that has gotten under my skin.  (Tis the season, right?)

It starts with a woman from Missoula saying, "I'm worried that my kids are going to grow up in a world that's vastly different than the one I grew up in."

Every time I hear her say it, I shake my head a little bit more.  (Or roll my eyes a little harder.)

• FM radio was invented the same year my grandpa was born.  
• My grandma was in her 20s when car seat belts became a thing.    
• When my mom was a teenager, women couldn't get a bank loan without a male to cosign for them.  
• My niece and nephew are digital natives.  
• If Ryan's heart had malfunctioned a generation earlier, the medical techniques that helped save him weren't available...so he probably would have died.  (I shudder to think.)
• When my mother-in-law was in school, female students weren't allowed to wear pants.  Skirts (of a specific length) were compulsory.
• When I was a senior in high school, there were laws in almost half of the US states that protected a person who raped their spouse from criminal prosecution.
• In the mid-'70s, my dad worked at a service station where gasoline cost less than $.50 a gallon (and they thought the prospect of it hitting $1 a gallon was unimaginable).  
• My great-great-grandma lived in a pre-nuclear, pre-refrigeration world.
• When my father-in-law was a little kid they still used an outhouse because they didn't have an indoor toilet.

GPS.  Antibiotics.  Women's suffrage.  Airplanes.  Germ theory.  Electric washing machines.  The internet.  Abolitionism.  Polio vaccines.  Rock-and-Roll music.  Airbags.  Hot water heaters.  Satellites.  The Civil Rights Act.  The microwave.  Insulin pumps.  And so many other culture-and-life-changing innovations!

So...yeah...maybe it is just me, but it seems that every generation grows up in a world that's vastly different than the one before it.  Progress and change march on and on and on.

The implied subtext in the political advert is that this is strictly a bad thing.  Something to be stopped.  To be reversed, even.  That's the part that has stuck in my craw.  

Of course, it will be different from one generation to the next.  But it will be different for the better and for the worse.  It is gonna be both.  Nothing will stop that.  There is no big Pause Button.  No option to Rewind.

Trite, but true:  Change is the only constant.  Honestly, I'm not sure we should want it any other way.  That seems sorta...scary to me.  Limiting and unnatural.  Arrogant and oblivious.  I mean, America doesn't have everything all figured out yet.  I didn't think that was up for debate.

So, I am not "worried" that the kids of the next generation--Conrad, Kel, Meadow, Eli, Ivy, Bella, Huey, etc.--will grow up in a world that's vastly different than that of my youth.  I am 100% certain that they will.  Every generation drives change in a myriad of ways--foreseen and unexpected.  So, pros and cons to all things, but I am actually eager to see what comes next in our collective story.

In due time, these babies will be the old guard and they can look back and reflect.  I hope they find themselves in a more peaceful world.  I hope the maternal death rate declines and civic engagement increases.  I hope massive, international efforts to mitigate climate change are successful.  I hope that women, people of color, and oppressed communities everywhere are better represented in their government and businesses at every level--not to mention in film, literature, and art.  I hope car-culture scales back and walkable cities are reclaimed for the masses.  I hope there are more voices at the table.  I hope they find themselves inhabiting a more just and equitable world. I honor the perpetual change that is the driving force as we evolve to be the best humanity we can be.

All photos from our recent trip to Yellowstone National Park and the Beartooth Highway.  9/8-9/9/2024

(Note:  My bullet-pointed statements come from direct primary sources or Wikipedia.)