Franklin Roosevelt said in his 1932 Inaugural Address as the Great Depression was crippling our country,
“We have nothing to fear but fear itself.”
I am not sure how to interpret those eight words, but I am happy that the American people took them to heart and eventually defeated that economic crisis. Certainly, on a lighter note or perhaps not, many of us have as our biggest fear turning into our mother and/or father in our older adult years.
Today, I still laugh out loud when I think about the memory of my brother one morning lying in bed with his feet and legs uncovered, Bob said while looking down at the end of the bed, “I thought I was in bed with my father with his skinny, pale white, hairless legs.” Ouch, scary! Although many physical similarities to parents exist because of genetics, most of us can accept the large gut allegedly brought on by the Heath side of my family or the crepey skin as witnessed in the sun-worn hands of our mothers or the receding hairline passed down to other follicley-challenged members of our lineage.
Our Biggest Fear is …
But I submit that those are fears we can and have to live with. What scares us the most, what is our biggest fear is that we end up ACTING and SPEAKING like dear old mom or dad. “You sound just like your mother.” “You act just like your father.” Don’t you just cringe when your spouse puts that mirror in front of your face exposing you for the fraud that you really are? Obviously, you protest that condemnation, but you really know down in your heart that it is true.
Sometimes I find myself ranting about the new kind of music, saying things like,” I can’t understand a word they say” and “That’s not music; that’s just noise.” Sound familiar? Embarrassingly so! Or have we ever made comments about the new technology that bombards us seemingly every day, making comments like, “I don’t know how to use that” and “Don’t people just write letters anymore.”
Clearly, President Roosevelt wasn’t talking about the real fear in our lives: the fear that as we age, we are turning into our parents. We could overcome the Great Depression, but how are we going to overcome the even greater depression that we are turning into our parents. Perhaps the first step is acknowledging that our parents were not that bad after all.
Come to think of it, what was so bad about that black rotary phone? At least I never butt dialed with it.
