Family
The tradition of family in today’s American culture has become a fad rather than a carefully nurtured tradition. For example, in the 1950's the family would all down together at five o'clock as for today we yearn for the perfect put together family, but we get too distracted by many activities such as sports, games, television, and work .
Back in the 1950's, mom would stay at home cleaning the house and preparing dinner. After school the kids would do there homework and then were allowed to go outside and play with the other kids on the street. Once dad got home form work everyone would wash up and sit down to have dinner. We would have conversation on how school went, how the neighbor brought over a plate of cookies, and how work went. The world has come very far since the twentieth century; along with our great accomplishments there has come downfalls such as fast food becoming increasing relied on as a meal. Family on the go, no time for quality family time, we have become so 'busy' we can't even find an hour to have a healthy, sit down dinner with the family.
Between dropping off each kid for his or her chosen sport or dance class and then turning around to pick each up or having to sit through each game or recital there is simply no time for a grocery run and dinner preparation then sitting down with everyone to eat the dinner, driving through the drive thru is just easier. Eric Schlosser describes the rapid fast food demand in an excerpt in Remix; "Why McDonald's Fries Taste So Good,"
"McDonald's fries now come from huge manufacturing plants that can peel, slice, cook, and freeze 2 million pounds of potatoes a day. The rapid expansion of McDonald's and the popularity of its low-cost, mass-produced fries changed the way Americans eat." (526). In other words the accessibility to fast food is convenient and cheap.
Furthermore, how many television shows do you have on record, and how many video games do you have stacked next to the gaming system? "Children zone out in front of the TV shows or their video games because the mind seeks out mindlessness," Steven Johnson illustrates in "Everything Good for You Is Bad for You: Games" a story from Remix how the television has altered our lifestyles. What does this say about the twenty-first century, our children? Our family? Ourselves? We used to have to go outside and make games up or play kickball in the streets with neighbors or pull out a board game and entertain ourselves with the family. Hours and hours are spent in front of the television screen which will always be there, unlike family and friend who come and go willingly and unannounced and we all regret not spending more time with our loved ones but at the end of the night we all sit back down, on the couch and watch our reality shows or finish feeding the cows on Farmville. Why not put the effort that we put into these distractions into our real life before it passes us by?
As well as, success and wealth being a natural greed we all nurture and mother. Yes, ever since the beginning of time we have been competitive for a wealthy life style, get all the things we want and be able to give out children everything we couldn't have but what we forget is the importance of not losing our family in the process, we all appreciate the effort and the gifts but what we all appreciate more is the love from our parents. A lot of times Americans have to work extra hard to be able to afford all the material items meaning that mom or dad is staying late at the office, taking on extra shift or extra projects, always working our way up the ladder like it is the most important factor of life, to smother our families in things but our spouses grow distant, daughters begin to date, sons are star quarterbacks. But all we do is come home tired from work and keep working to keep up or head straight to bad to wake up and do it all over again. Many families today have both mom and dads who work during the day leaving kids fending for themselves for dinner or putting themselves to bed. We lose sight of who our children are because we don't spend time with them anymore. Families go through divorce more often, single parents are more common everyday, and the family unit is not what is once used to be.
Our daily lifestyle becomes so busy by the want of wanting that we forget what we really have. A common dream lies within all of us; to grow up and have a perfect family. Just as we start to get there we get bulldozed by TV, magazines, video games, commercials, radio advertising 'stuff' that claims to make us happier or make life easier or more convenient but what we realize is everything that we need is right in front of us because we get too distracted too many activities such as sports, games, television, and work.
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