The Best Years of Your Life

We went to a local antique store today to poke around before heading to the movies. The store is actually a sprawling building with many vendors sharing the space. I love looking at all the treasures. Such memories are found in these stores.

Today's find was a book written in 1939 titled,  Is There a Baby in the House, by Eleanor Gale Carroll. The dust jacket has a picture of Daddy in his suit holding a baby in the air while Mommy, in dress, high heels and apron, holds toddler daughter piggy back. Underneath this charming picture the caption reads,

"Sparkling and practical, this book tells you how to make Junior a joy, rather than a diapered dictator."


Flipping through the book with chapter headings ranging from, Timetables for Contentment, and, Help Wanted- Female (subtitled: My Last Six Maids and Why They Left), to Come-and Bring the Children (The Gentle Art of Visiting) and Children in Your Hair. It's a fascinating look at child rearing advice and trends in the late 1930's- early 1940's.

These young parents were (according to the book), more likely to be college educated (both Mom and Dad), and career oriented (before Mom had the baby.) The average family size was three children and baby number one was most often planned. Kid Two and Three were "our little oops!"

Sounds a lot like today, doesn't it? I read this paragraph at the end of Chapter One and find the parallels with today's world striking:

                "The best years of your lives should be in the present, not the past or the future... 
                  after all, today's young parents have a lot to do in the world besides bring 
                 up their children.... Parents have been putting off the millennium for too long
                 by expecting their offspring to carry the torch. Today's parents have to consider
                 the mess of today's world and try to straighten things out- or at least keep themselves
                 and their country from being infected by the world's sickness.  They have to write
                 a few books, paint a few pictures, grow a few crops, make a few dollars. They
                 must do these things as well as bring up their children- if they want those 
                 children to inherit anything save a world in chaos. It seems rather ridiculous
                 to spend all this effort bringing up a lot of healthy, normal, happy youngsters
                 if their only task later on will consist of picking up the pieces."

1939- the world on the brink of war. Seventy-two years later-have our dreams for our children changed?