The other day I was in an old farmhouse in the adjoining county and someone asked me a rhetorical question:
’Why didn’t we have a drug problem when you and I were growing up?’
I replied that I had a drug problem when I was young:
I was drug to church on Sunday morning.
I was drug to church for weddings and funerals.
I was drug to family reunions and community socials no matter the weather. I was drug by my ears when I was disrespectful to adults.
I was also drug to the woodshed when I disobeyed my parents, told a lie, brought home a bad report card, did not speak with respect, spoke ill of the teacher or the preacher, or if I didn’t put forth my best effort in everything that was asked of me.
I was drug to the kitchen sink to have my mouth washed out with soap if I uttered a profanity.
I was drug out to pull weeds in the garden and flower beds. I was drug to the homes of neighbors to help mow the yard, repair the clothesline, and if my mother had ever known that I took a single dime as a tip for this kindness, my dad would have drug me back to the woodshed.
Those drugs are still in my veins and they affect my behavior in everything I do, say, or think.
If today’s children had this kind of drug problem, America would be a better place.
God bless the parents who drugged us.
Jack, drug use was much more prominent in your generation than it is in mine and illegal drug use seems to be dropping even further among the younger generation. Many studies have confirmed this. Most of the millennials I know are more responsible than their parents in other aspects of life as well.
Infantile espousal of an America that never existed. You gonna grow up? … or vote for Trump again?
So now we get to the root of the problem.
Libby doesn’t believe that the America described ever existed. Well, I experienced it and most, if not all of my family and friends experienced it. Libby, maybe the fact that you didn’t experience it is the root of your problem. I wouldn’t trade the way my parents raised me for anything.
I experienced it as well. It was hard work. You had to earn it. If you were wrong or made a mistake, you were expected to own it.
Now? The progs live by the motto “It’s not your fault. The blame lies elsewhere”. There is a name for those who do that–losers.
AMEN!
Great posting!!!!!!! Glad my parents “drug” me, too!
Yup, that’s the world I grew up in and if I got in trouble at school I knew I was in bigger trouble at home. I was also reminded that what I did would reflect on the family and that someone was always watching, even God.
It’s laughable how those who didn’t live back then think they can tell us how it really was compared to today.
Church attendance 1955-1960 was 57%- 63.3%:
“The U.S. population achieved its biggest growth in history – from 150 million in 1950 to 180 million in 1960 – as newly married young couples begot the baby boom generation.
Churches and schools were being greatly expanded to accommodate the growing population, and organized religion was in its heyday. On a typical Sunday morning in the period from 1955-58, almost half of all Americans were attending church – the highest percentage in U.S. history. During the 1950s, nationwide church membership grew at a faster rate than the population, from 57 percent of the U.S. population in 1950 to 63.3 percent in 1960.”
https://news.usc.edu/25835/The-1950s-Powerful-Years-for-Religion/
Church attendance 2018 was 22%:
“According to a 2018 survey, 28 percent of Americans never attend church or synagogue, compared to 22 percent of Americans who attend every week.”
https://www.statista.com/statistics/245491/church-attendance-of-americans/
Chris, “Jack, drug use was much more prominent in your generation than it is in mine and illegal drug use seems to be dropping …”
Flat out lie!
My high school years 1962-66, didn’t have drugs other than smoking where your parents or any adult would see you. Sneaking a couple of beers from the frig was the worst any of us ever did. Today’s drug problem is a crisis compared to mine and Jack’s generation.
Decades of Drug Use: Data From the ’60s and ’70s:
The 1960s:
“The 1960s brought us tie-dye, sit-ins and fears of large-scale drug use. Hippies smoked marijuana, kids in ghettos pushed heroin, and Timothy Leary, a Harvard professor, urged the world to try LSD. In popular imagination, the 1960s were the heyday of illegal drug use — but historical data indicate they probably weren’t. In fact, surveys show that drug abuse was comparably rare, as was accurate information about the effects of illegal drugs. In a 1969 Gallup poll, only 4% of American adults said they had tried marijuana. Thirty-four percent said they didn’t know the effects of marijuana, but 43% thought it was used by many or some high school kids. In 1972, 60% of Americans thought that marijuana was physically addictive (research shows that it is generally not physically addictive because regular users rarely show physical withdrawal symptoms, but marijuana can be psychologically addictive).
Alana Anderson, a child custody officer, graduated from college in 1969. “My generation was told that marijuana caused acne, blindness, and sterility,” she said. “It was a scare tactic rather than an education tactic.”
https://news.gallup.com/poll/6331/decades-drug-use-data-from-60s-70s.aspx
1980s:
“By the mid-80s, the introduction of crack cocaine turned youth drug use into a truly terrifying issue. Crack was cheap, plentiful and hideously addictive. Its effects — including gang warfare and crack babies — were quickly gaining notoriety. A 1986 Gallup poll asked Americans, “Which one of the following do you think is the MOST serious problem for society today: Marijuana, alcohol abuse, heroin, crack, other forms of cocaine or other drugs?” At 42%, “crack” and “other forms of cocaine” beat “alcohol abuse” by eight percentage points — even though there are far more alcoholics than crack addicts.
As the war on drugs escalated and hard drugs moved into the suburbs, a new form of anti-drug education was born. It was becoming obvious that, as Gary De Blasio, Executive Director of Corner House Counseling Center for Adolescents and Young Adults, said, “Scare tactics don’t work.” Drug-abuse prevention began to center on education. Instead of giving kids the willies, new outreach programs such as DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) and Partnership for a Drug-Free America (PDFA), began teaching kids how to make good choices — the willies are temporary, the ability to reason is permanent.”
1990s:
“The 1990s
Federal funding for the war on drugs reached $17.1 billion dollars. In a Gallup poll, 34% of Americans admitted to having tried marijuana.
By the last decade of the millennium, it appeared that fewer people were using drugs. Gallup polls showed little change in the percentage of adults who said they had used marijuana — 34% of Americans said they had tried it in a 1999 poll. According to the Gallup Youth Survey, however, the percentage of teens admitting to marijuana use also continued to drop, from 38% in 1981 to 20% in 1999. PDFA reported that teens’ “trial” use of marijuana, inhalants, methamphetamines, LSD and — for the first time — cocaine, had declined in 1999.
So the recent upswing in the use of heroin and “club drugs” was all the more startling. “Ecstasy and crystal meth are popular in California, meth is big in the Midwest, and the New Jersey Turnpike is just ‘the Heroin Highway’,” said De Blasio. Heroin is one of the most deadly of the illegal drugs. Luckily, the most common form of ingestion — injection into a vein — has repulsed most potential users. Until now. A stronger, purer version of heroin that can be smoked or snorted is becoming available in big cities.
The use of methamphetamines (often called “crystal meth” or “meth”) is relatively new among teens. A stimulant, meth creates paranoia, hallucinations and repetitive behavior patterns. Long-term use can lead to toxic psychosis. Recent PDFA studies found that use by high school students more than doubled between 1990 and 1996.”
https://news.gallup.com/poll/6352/decades-drug-use-80s-90s.aspx
So I misremembered how old you were—that’s not a “lie.” I had placed you in the later end of the Baby Boomer generation, which does have drug abuse rates comparable to Millennials. It looks like Generation X is actually a bit more sober than both my generation and Boomers:
https://mountainside.com/blog/opioids/generation-prescription-pills-how-baby-boomers-and-millennials-are-driving-the-opioid-crisis
Fortunately, drug use among today’s teens still seems to be declining:
https://www.drugabuse.gov/news-events/news-releases/2016/12/teen-substance-use-shows-promising-decline