Hi Peter and Larry,

Peter Hendra wrote:
On Tue, 01 May 2007 02:22:21 +0000, Larry wrote:

Fascinating, and i am getting an education to boot.

The sad thing about this type of picturing the "typical American
family" is that many people believed that it was the norm and thus
expected it.

When I taught high school science for a couple of years, a colleague
who taught social studies (in N.Z. - other countries and society) set
an assignment for his 14 year old boys and girls to make a collage
from newspaper and magazine pictures - or any pictures, of their
future in ten or so years time.

The boys of course had cars and motorbikes. Most of the girls had
collages combining expenive, unaffordable homes, candlelight dining as
in the Lustron picture, loving family scenes and such as pictures of
them waving off hubby to work in his equally unaffordable to most
sports car whilst standing at the door in an evening gown complete
with diamond earings and impractical (for cleaning the house and
washing the nappies, that is) hairstyles. All the men were muscular
and handsome and all the women were fashion models - not a pot belly,
sagging boob or unslightly stretchmark in sight.

The major change in civilization that led to these
unrealistic fantasies of life in the youngsters
was the rise of mass visual media--photography,
magazines, movies, and then television. The
people making their living selling mass media
quickly figured out that glamor attracted an
audience, and that no one was interested in the
realistic mundane parts of life. Advertisers also
needed to attract eyeballs to their product so
featured the beautiful people enjoying their products.

The result was a generation of children raised
with unrealistic expectations of life, and, as
they became older, the vague feeling that they
were failing at life because they did not have the
lifestyle portrayed and expected.

Is it any wonder that, with the reality of stretching the meagre
budgets of the newly wed, kids screaming in the middle of the night
from illnesses etc, wife finding that she has to work, husband
realising that the GT40 is beyond his reach etc., etc., that reality
sets in, romance and hope die a little and our divorce rate is close
to 50%. I don't know what the figures for the U.S. are but I remember
that a survey taken in Dallas, Texas a few years ago gave the figure
of above 90% to financial reasons being the primary cause of Marital
breakdowns.

It is said that 50% of the marriages end in
divorce, but I have noticed that there are a lot
of people around that have been married only once
and are devoted to their mates. At the same time,
there are a fewer number that have been married
four or five times. This would suggest that the
statistics are skewed by a small percentage of
people who have many marriage failures.

To illustrate, consider five siblings. Four of
them have long term marriages with committed
mates, but one is married four times with each
marriage ending in divorce. In this case, you
have eight marriages, with four ending in divorce
for your "50% of marriages end in divorce"
statistic, but it doesn't show the real picture.


Now if only people bought a BOAT to live aboard instead of a house,
perhaps they might stay together longer due to the requirement on the
sea for shared responsibility. - Had to think on that one.

I wonder what the statistics for divorce are among
liveaboard cruisers. I've heard that a lot of
marriages end under the strain of one party being
an avid sailor with dreams of seeing the world,
while the other is a reluctant participant.
Oddly, it seems that either sex is equally likely
to get the wanderlust.


Peter

The people pictured in the Lustron movie and ads are just the people you
are talking about...(c; Mom stayed at HOME and ran the household and
children. Dad worked and his meager salary supported them all, in their
new $7000 Lustron home. His $900 new Chevy sedan got him to work just
fine....

Then, the money mongers decided to ruin my country......
Moms all work, now trying to make ends meet. The US Dollar is WORTHLESS.
It's all gone and won't ever return....
Larry

Larry,

The US$ isn't at all worthless. You should do
some foreign travel to get a feel for what people
in other countries are having to put up with.

We just got back from the UK, where we were paying
0.92 UKP per liter for "petrol". That is the
equivalent of almost $8 per gallon. Whenever we
travel outside the USA, I like to check out real
estate, grocery, transportation, fuel etc prices
to get a feel for the cost of living. On this
trip my wife and I both came back with the
distinct feeling that we in the USA still have
things very good compared to the UK, but most of
us don't know it.

Don W.