Back in the day…extended families lived together on rural farms. They ran small cottage industry operations to produce things that the community needed. They grew and raised their own food and shared the bounty in community events.
There are still communities like this dotted across the countryside. They have farmers markets and food and craft fairs. A closer look might tell us that these communities are actually up-scale tourist destinations. We read about them in glossy-print magazines, magazines that the real rural-poor cannot even afford to buy. Stories about places that they cannot afford to go. The big farms are owned by one family and operated by others, like it used to be in the time of tenant farmers and feudalism, a not so happy tradition from back in the day.
What we don’t see in glossy print are the stories about the empty store fronts, the ruined businesses, the bankrupt farms, the ghost towns that litter the MidWest. In the majority of rural settings families have split apart and moved on, driven out by commodity brokers like Tyson, Cargill, and ADM and the big business version of the American Dream. The reality is only a shadow of the past and far-removed from what we see in media print.
Back in the day, my parents kept close ties with my grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. Today, family ties shift and change with each generation. Outside influences such as marriage, distance, and the distorted reality presented in the media, have over the years caused the erosion of healthy family ties.
Young adult children move away seeking employment or education. The media tells us that the goal in life is to get a high paying job, that wealth is the reward for getting an education. The reality is that all the accumulation of wealth brings is the ability to be a consumer. Food, education, and entertainment are all commodified. We are avid consumers, and we join our education system and the media in teaching our children to be the same. What do consumers contribute to society or to the community? What legacy do consumers leave for future generations?
Back in the day… you went to school to learn how to contribute something of value to your home community, how to generate resources and produce goods for sustenance, how to participate as an equal in a free democracy. Youth who left for distant college or university, did so to return with useful skills for solving local problems. Much of what we learned came to us through our experience of participating in our hometown community. We learned from the wisdom of our elders, and passed it on to our children.
Today, seniors live sedentary lives in isolation until they can no longer care for themselves. Our individual histories disappear as our elders die or succumb to dementia. We are left with artificial histories, synthetic stories, and misinformation proffered by the media. The young are left unable to explore the patterns of living that their ancestors created, both good and bad, both healthy and unhealthy, they are not interested, or they are left believing that grandparents are someone you visit in a nursing home once a year. We navigate without a compass, explore without light.
How should we respond to this unhappy evolution? Can we recapture our family heritage, strengthen families and communities, restore ourselves to physical and emotional health? Can we return to the good things about “back in the day” and bring them forward to the present with an eye to the health of future generations? It seems like an overwhelming task. Let’s try. Next steps?….
Cheers,
Gus
