A Call for Simpler Times? Perhaps...

I know our gas prices aren't quite this high....yet....but you know its just a matter of time. The day before I left for Florida, which was May 12th, I took a picture with my phone at the pump at my corner. The gas was $3.89. I thought how insane! It can't possibly get higher than this! But as you are all painfully aware, we have far surpassed this meager cost & have soared right over the $4 mark. And don't even get me started on what I pay for groceries! I don't buy red meat, don't buy organic (despite what the experts suggest), buy a lot of generic products, and still manage to spend a small fortune every week. Besides our basic bills, this is where we are spending all our money (what little we have). At the pump...at the grocery store. Things like restaurants & movies are rare treats these days. And forget about even setting foot in a mall!

In talking to my mom about this, she wondered about the possibility that we may be headed back to World War II living. She was a little girl at the time, but remembers the scrimping & saving quite well. Probably what has made her the frugal wife & mother she grew into. She remembers saving tin foil because you could get pennies for metal. This past week, my husband recycled some metal in a yard in order to get a few bucks for it. Mom remembers living in one large house with 2 of her aunts, cousins & her grandparents living in a smaller house out back (what today people would call "in-law quarters"). They shared one bathroom, one kitchen, one radio. She remembers that they only took a bath twice a week in order to conserve water. But growing up in the depression era required such sacrifices. And I'm sure they thought they lived pretty well compared to others.

As time goes on and gas prices continue to climb, food prices become unreal and basic living expenses become harder & harder to maintain, might we too begin to adopt some of their frugality's? I even began to think that maybe my mom & her mom before her had it right. Maybe for all our advances, we've turned our simple world into something that has become harder & harder to attain or maintain. Like maybe it would be nice to live all together with your extended family. Think about sharing expenses with others. Think about taking turns making meals & sharing them with your family at the end of the day. Think about not having to worry about day care because there's always an aunt or grandma in the house. The younger men go to work, the older men take care of the yard & maintenance of the home. You'd always have babysitters, people to help with housework, maybe even share cars.

Hard to imagine, isn't it?? In a culture where we all have our own cars, a TV in every room, every child with their own bedroom & multiple bathrooms. Many of us don't even live in the same state, let alone the same neighborhood as our families. Haven't we lost something? Have we created a detached feeling at times. Maybe all these crazy cost increases are going to force us back to simpler things, simpler times. Maybe we'll all have to start depending on each other more, maybe we'll begin to help take care of those in our families...the young, the old & everyone in between. Its a great theory...something kind of cool to dream about. Hard to imagine though having to give up our independence, our privacy. (I am realistic enough to see ALL the shortcomings of this thinking...the things you're thinking right now!) But, oh what might we gain? What might our children gain by growing up surrounded by all the generations of their families? The values & wisdom shared of a generation past.

Being faced with the possibility of moving away in order to find decent jobs, makes me lament such an ideal. Its weighing out the necessity of providing for your family & a more secure future vs. the relationships & life you've built here. Not an easy decision to be sure, and I'm certainly not sure it will ever be a circumstance realized...time will tell. I'll keep you posted.