When Donald IV grows up and has a family, maybe even Donald V (who may have Donald VI), and you find yourselves reminiscing about their ancestors, tell them that Donald's great-grandparents grew up in the 1950's. Tell them the things were settled and simple in the 50's- settled because everyone had prescribed roles to fulfill and simple because few people had more than what they needed. Tell them that religion was an accepted part of our life then and that President Eisenhower told us to go to our synagogue or church of choice each week. Tell them that people were encouraged to keep unorthodox thoughts to themselves and never to launder family secrets in public. It was a time in which people gave themselves to appearances, and really did try to meet the expectations that society had of them. Should they ask, tell them that we saw the first McDonalds that ever existed in Iowa and that it didn't have any seats or kid's meals. Tell them that most families owned one car because women were expected to stay home, and one TV set because families were expected to spend time together. Movies had happy endings in the 1950s, and good guys always wore white on TV, Crude language was censored and married couples on TV wore pajamas and slept in different beds. While it's nothing to brag about, tell them that almost everyone, including their great-grandparents smoked in those days, and that the phrase "being gay" meant "being happy." Tell them that there weren't many fast food places in the old days and that there wasn't even much concern about being fast. Things moved slowly and predictably in the 50s... but our world was infected with "isms."
We had racism, which systematically punished people for being black, and we had sexism that kept women in their place. Discrimination against "gays" wasn't necessary because they were all in hiding, and the same can be said for the Jews who had changed their names. Many women were fulfilled as housewives (later called homemakers), and a few women, like Donald's great-great grandfather's boss, found success in business. Some black people broke through as well, and some gay people "came out"... but by and large, it was a time when people were supposed to fulfill the roles that they had inherited at birth.
Then, "all hell broke out." People began to protest a war that their peers were dying in and some of them were even fleeing to Canada, to avoid their patriotic duty. At about the same time, parents were encouraged to treat their children as "little adults," and the children began to see their parents as either "friends" or "foes." What is more, many people began to resist that roles that had been prescribed to them. Black people marched for liberty and justice and women burned their bras in protest to sexism. People everywhere demanded the freedom to do whatever they wanted... or nothing at all... and they insisted on having a voice in America's future! The white, male establishment resisted, but it was in vain... because youth and change must be served. Religion was not spared either, and those who worshiped the Dollar Almighty decided that their stores ought to be open on Sundays. From this point on, people began to seek more and more individual freedom, fewer and fewer commitments, and things began to move faster and faster.
This is pretty much (unless something terrible has happened) the world that our great and great-great grandchildren find themselves living in, and I would say but two things. 1) I pray that they're enjoying the freedoms that were established in the old days because discriminatory "isms" cannot be tolerated; and 2) I fervently hope that they have re-established the sense of faith, family, community, commitment, and honor that made our country great in the first place. It was a mistake to put people into a box and keep them there... but it was terribly unwise to destroy the very pillars that held our country together! Tell them that in the old days, we might have been a little less free, but we were a whole lot better anchored! Tell them also that we love them and that we are so glad that they are in such loving hands.
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