Getting on the Right Track

Trying to stay on the right track isn't so easy in a ship on the ocean.

Often times that is what it feels like when we are trying to navigate through our life here on earth.

A few weeks ago at the library, Adorable Cousin and I listened to a speaker on life in the 1800s. This woman had done her research and had some interesting facts on the subject.

It is difficult when doing research to know the reasoning behind cultural and societal happenings unless someone specifically from that era tells you.

Jumping thoughts here. We have a toy box. This has been a toy box since before my kids were born. Our oldest child will be forty-six before the end of the year, so this toy box is ancient.

This toy box is so old, and I don't even know what it is. It's round with some kind of a seat that is not attached. Anyway, it is probably worth my first million dollars and we've been putting toys in it for sixty-five years.

No matter, kids have been digging through that box for years. I've seen parents who try to micro manage their children's lives, but that's not me.

Our children have predominantly been male with a small scattering of girls. I can tell you that the boys do not usually choose to play with dolls, doll buggies or whatnot. They like building toys, cars, yes, they like guns. The girls are more likely to choose the dolls and the buggies.

They did all like the tea sets, because let's face it cake, cookies, and food go with tea parties. They especially liked to fill the 'tea pot' with water and dribble it across the carpet. That's another story...

The point is that people of today's era can guess at the reason why people of the past did things but we can't actually know with out verbal or written words from that generation.

To say as this poor woman did that 'this happened because others (women) wanted to control other people' is only the speaker's opinion not necessarily fact. According to her, girls and boys play with the toys they choose to play with today because of our great grandmother's controlling spirit.

And there were a whole host of things that the 'women of that era did to control society and others in said society'. Hmmm-

When we first began homeschooling our children there was a history professor, James Fleet I believe his name was, from a college in Colorado, perhaps Denver. He had a class on IPBS every week day.

That was the best class and we all watched it. From my ninth grader...well even the preschool kids. He enjoyed history, and had a wonderful way of presenting it. It came across as a story that just flowed.

I remember one thing in particular that he said, and let me set this up somewhat. My library speaker was coming at her speel from a modern feminist point of view, but true history doesn't care about modern or ancient point of views. It is what it is.

Go back in history, probably more than fifty years, but you don't have to go a lot longer than that. Even today life is uncertain, but seventy-five years and before it becomes precarious. A balancing act, if you will.

I've shared how maybe twenty-five years ago I told someone how fun my kids were. Some of my kids were gone from home, or they were teenagers, except for my little Buddy. But our kids were generally fun.

This young person was about to get married and at my words she, in her 'reared back on her hind-legs' attitude told me—'You just had kids to take care of you when you're old'.

I told my Adorable Cousin this, and her response? Gotta love my family, when they're at a loss for words nobody has words... Adorable said, 'well, so she wants strangers to take care of her when she's old?'

I'd never thought of that. I was just over forty years old at that moment and getting 'old' was the furthermost thing from my mind, and the way I lived I didn't figure I'd ever get 'old'.

But you go back seventy-five years and more and yes, children were the only thing that stood between parents being destitute or being cared for in their old age. Children were a blessing.

Let me repeat that. Children were a blessing. Most people not just desired, but longed for children—for more than just being cared for. Children were also parents ticket for immortality.

Another jibe older generations get is that not only did they have children, but we all know they had lots of children. Or so we think we know.

Families were larger that is true. Of course in marital relations people don't get married to just live in the same house, so having children was to be expected. One thing modern critics don't take into account is that, as our Professor Fleet pointed out, the infant mortality rate was quite high.

People died back then, and children were not immune to death. The good professor pointed out that in writings of that time, one father of that era said he had five children, but only three were surviving.

In quoting the father, Professor Fleet said, 'it was not without sorrow that the father said this, but it was to be expected. Infant mortality rate was high.'

He also said at one point that people in those societies had rules and customs. He said the reason for that was because life was uncertain and couldn't always be counted on. Things happened and there wasn't always a rhyme or reason that our finite minds could grasp.

The rules of society gave stability to the often uncertain lives of the occupants of this planet, helping them to navigate through uncharted and shifting times.

In reality, instead of 'trying to control' everyone else's behavior they were helping them maintain their sanity when life became insane.

Psalm 27:4 "One thing have I asked of Jehovah, that will I seek after; That I may dwell in the house of Jehovah all the days of my life, To behold the beauty of Jehovah, And to inquire in his temple. 5) For in the day of trouble he will keep me secretly in his pavilion: In the covert of his tabernacle will he hide me; He will lift me up upon a rock."