Evolution not Revolution

This is a very interesting prompt, because the more I thought about it, the more complex the answer became. I think every generation is brought up by the two generations before them, even if they don’t meet their grandparents. The way your parents brought you up is related to the way that their parents brought them up. Sometimes the children will do the same and sometimes they will do the opposite depending on how much they enjoyed their own family life. Usually, however, they develop a mix of their own traditions and the traditions handed down to them.

In addition to the feelings that the children have about their own upbringing you have to factor in the make up of the family unit. My wife and I were both only children so when we discussed becoming parents the clear line we had was that, barring issues of health which could arise, that we would have more than one to avoid the lonely childhood both of us had. Once we had more than one child our focus was on making sure that we made them the absolute focal point of our lives. This is something that our parents were not encouraged to do by society in the years when children were seen and not heard.  For example, every holiday we took while our children were growing up was based on what they needed so holiday camps were in because they were cheap and fully child focused. We did not consider what we wanted until they were a lot older. When we were younger, we were treated like mini adults and expected to go on adult holidays.

I can’t imagine many of my parents generation doing what I did and giving up alcohol when it became a choice between my evening drink and the children being able to go to sports or dance clubs, but the Sunday lunchtime pub visit which my Dad saw as essential finished there and then. Also, Sunday lunch was a roast every single weekend. I am not a huge fan of roast dinner so we have them every month or so.

What tends to happen with festivals like Christmas is that your traditions evolve and are built upon. Father Christmas always came to my bedroom to drop off his presents and he did the same with my children. Christmas dinner has a turkey as its centrepiece as my childhood did, but I prefer to have cold accompaniments.

What really interests me is what happens with our own children and their traditions and approaches to life. They will keep some of our traditions and they will decide on their own. My grandparents would not recognise our traditions in so many ways but they would not recognise the world we live in. We will not recognise the world ourselves in 20 years time if we are still around.

Tradition has its place in terms of setting a benchmark both personal and cultural, but every generation will alter those traditions to suit their society and their place in the world. We can choose what we want to keep and what we get rid of and those traditions will go on changing generation after generation.