Family Values

? What kinds of values did your family pass along to you during the generation when you grew up?

? How did the trends of that generation influence your observance of your families’ values?

? What kind of an influence did the generation you lived in have on your life?

Trends reflect the values of a society. They have an influence on how we live our lives: how our families develop and grow (either together or apart).

Did you wear the bell-bottoms? Were you a hippie? How did you embrace your generation?

And why did you do the things you did?

Let’s take a look at some of the trademark trends of the past 40 years or so…

How many here were born in the 60’s? In the 60’s:

The ‘mini-computer’ was roughly the size of a passenger car.

The home video camera was a handheld 14mm film camera.

And the board game, “What Shall I Be – The exciting game of career girls” was a hit.

What shall I be, indeed… Looks like women had a choice between ballerina, housewife, secretary, or nurse back then…

Money was referred to as Bread, or Scratch, the Church Key was a Bottle Opener, a Hunk was a good looking guy and you were Righteous if you were extremely attractive.

Oh, and in the 60’s, thongs were something you wore on your feet…

In the 70’s:

The ‘mini-computer’ got even mini-er… It could actually fit on the desktop by then.

The VCR came into play, with the advent of the beta cassette player.

And family fun was watching Quincy and making rugs with those latch-hook sets.

Money is still Bread, Dy-no-mite meant something was great, and the phrases Mellow Out, Right On, and See You on the Flipside were some of the phat sayings back then. (That’s a 90’s term)

Next were the Big 80’s: the big-hair decade.

Big hair was a big deal in the 80’s. As you can see, the Mohawk came into fashion… Big Mohawk = big attitude. Everything was big in the 80’s. There’s a classic picture of an 80’s family… Big hair everywhere. Is that dad, or Benji in the back? And don’t forget, your big haired pastor… He was an 80’s guy… That’s me with the big hair, and Hulk Hogan there.

Money turned into Beans in the 80’s. Barney was an unattractive man, and if you watch Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, you’ll learn all the other slang terms: Bodacious, Bogus, Chill Dude, Whatever (valley girl style), and ‘Yo’ were all big terms in the 80’s.

Every decade, society comes out with new trends. It never fails. Two decades later and we laugh at how silly those trends were… Three decades later and we’re putting on their clothes again and calling it Retro… Go figure.

But understand this: trends go lot deeper than just fashion statements and technological advancements. In fact, fashion, music and technology are all just the byproducts of the trends themselves.

Trends are the end result of our mentality, our attitude and our state of emotional being. Trends are the outward expression of an inward emotion: frustration or rebellion.

Typically, we make trends to make some sort of public statement.

Growing up in the generations we were raised in, trends were typically a statement of rebellion toward society. An outward display of defiance against whatever society considered normal and right.

Trends have typically always been one step past what our parents would deem acceptable for us…

Progressing trends are typically the next inch in the pushing the moral and ethical envelope society has placed us in. Our parents’ trends were a little more conservative than our, weren’t they?

I remember my dad threatening to kick me out of the house when I came home with a diamond stud earring in my ear… You know what I did? I went right out and I put two more in the same ear…

Each decade, the older generation imposes standards: moral and ethical envelopes, which the younger generation is expected to honor and obey.

And each decade, the younger generation pushes those envelopes a little further and sets up a standard of their own. The problem is generation after generation passes, pushing the envelope a little bit further until there is no value, no moral code, no ethical standard, except what seems right to each person…

And what you end up with is total chaos, as in the days of the judges, where each man did whatever was right in his own eyes… No absolutes, no rights or wrongs…

But the Word of the living God says, “You are not to do as we do here today, everyone as he sees fit, since you have not yet reached the resting place and the inheritance the LORD your God is giving you.” Deut 12:8-9