Thank God for Growth!

I started this blog over a decade ago.  Every now and then, I'll go back and read some of my older posts just.  Sometimes I find myself laughing at loud at a story that I barely remember today.  Other times, I smack myself in the head and say, "What were you thinking?".

So many things that I believed years ago I don't believe now.  And even if I do believe in them, I now have a different approach to it.

I've always tried to take an old school approach when it came to solving problems in society.  I still believe that approach can work more times than not.  But some of the things I said in previous posts were harsh and therefore rendered ineffective because I was trying to enforce an old school approach in a new school society.  That tends to make things worse.

Thankfully, I now understand that finger-pointing is no longer the way to instill accountability.  Even if it's true, it doesn't make it helpful to people to get it thrown in their faces.  I've learned to take a different approach to things.  As much as I hate sugar-coating the truth, it's simply something we have to do in today's fragile society.  And I can't take back anything I posted years ago, but I can atone for them with a changed approach.

It's amazing how a person's mindset can change simply by continuing to live.  Of course, it takes an open mind, but it can be done if people allow it to happen.  I'm glad that it happened to me.  13 years later this blog still exists and it continues to show the progress I've made as an individual.  

Thank God for growth and Happy 13th birthday to my blog.  I have a teen-ager now.

Guys Haven't Changed

From generation to generation, one constant thing in the U.S. is that a lot of guys will want to have sex with as many women as they can.  That has not changed over the decades.  What has changed is that the responsibility to care for any children made with these women has faded.  

We've all heard stories back in the day about "Mr. Earl" having an entire family on the other side of town that "no one knew about".  Mr. Earl would bring his "other kids" to his house and his wife would feed them, no questions asked.  In a lot of cases (not all), he would do what he could to take care of both households.  

Fast-forward to today and "Mr. Devante" does the same thing Mr. Earl did decades ago except he doesn't stop with just one household.  He'll have babies in multiple households.  And in a lot of cases (not all) he will not do much to take care of those kids he's created with others.  

What happened?  Where did the disconnect start?  How did the responsibility fade over the generations?

If you know me, I place a lot of the today's societal woes at the feet of 70's babies (for the record, I was born in 1971).  70s babies spend more time these days trying to defy growing older instead of using that time to train up the young ones.  We want to compete with them.  Not teach them.

But it's not all on us.  So much has contributed to the erosion of responsibility in the U.S.  Especially in the black and brown communities.  We blame women.  We blame men.  We blame the white man.  

Regardless of who gets the blame, nothing seems to ever change for the better, so my only suggestion is simply for people to change themselves.

- If you're a guy who doesn't want a bunch of baby mamas and child support orders then wear a condom or don't have sex at all.

- If you're a woman who doesn't want the responsibility of raising a child on your own then use some form of birth control or don't have sex at all.

Mr. Earl lived during a time when one salary could pay a lot of bills.  Not in Mr. Devante's world though.  One salary can barely even take care of a single-person household.  You'd think that would be more of a deterrent from spreading one's seed, but nope.

The person who doesn't want the responsibility of being a parent should be the one who uses the birth control.  It only takes one person to do it to prevent a baby.

There are too many examples of people in bad situations for us to allow this to continue to happen.  Share this blog post on your timeline and at least change the minds of people you care about.

Back In My Day...

When I was a kid, I remember when my dad started many sentences with, "Back in my day...".  I also remember when I hit the point in my life when I started sentences the same way when talking to my god kids.

However, I feel differently about that than I once did.  

Because of the lack of technology, society evolved at a snail's pace 50+ years ago.  The only way to know what someone was doing in another region was via TV, radio, or word of mouth.  That meant a lot of traditions and pastimes stayed intact for a lot longer back then than it does today.  Thanks to the internet, a new trend can start all over the world in a matter of hours as opposed to decades.

My father's generation and the generations prior to it enjoyed fishing and hunting as kids because that was one of few recreational options they had at the time.  Fast forward to my generation and we also enjoyed those things, too.  Until they were replaced by computers, video games, shopping malls and music videos in the 80's.  For me, sitting in front of a computer for hours was the equivalent of my dad sitting on the bank of his favorite fishing hole all day.

As we mature, we want younger people to appreciate and embrace what we once did without taking into account that they deserve a chance to enjoy their pastimes just like we did.  We need to stop putting them down for going to establishments just to take selfies, the music they enjoy, or the fact that they can't function without a smart phone.  We're always going to think that our generation is better just as our parents think that theirs was.

As someone from Generation X, I'll always be thankful that...

• I got through hundreds of mall visits and 12 years of public school without fear of a mass shooting.
• I attended many concerts and comedy shows without fear of a viral infection.
• I got to slow dance in nightclubs.
• I was able to get away with a lot of knuckleheaded things because there weren't cell phone videos.

The list goes on.

Going forward, whenever one of my god kids tells me about something they enjoy doing, I'll refrain from saying "back in my day..." as if to dismiss their pastimes.  I'll save my stories for when I'm asked about it.  After all, they deserve to have their own memories to embrace just as I have mine.  And it's only a matter of time before they're also starting sentences with "Back in my day..."