[Violette_R]

I don't want to talk about this to anyone who actually knows me so it's going here. Lucky you! /sarcasm

When I look at the previous 2 generations of my father's family, than at my generation, I have to wonder the h e l l happened.

Grandparents and their siblings: farmers, teachers, war veterans, solid people who raised solid kids. My grandfather even took on the farm of a Japanese-American friend who was sent to an internment camp during WWII to ensure he had a home and business to return to. Just because it was the right thing to do.

Father and his siblings: professionals, war veterans, solid people who kept their kids housed, clothed, fed, etc.

My generation: My oldest cousin is unemployed and on her 3rd husband. My second oldest cousin lived at home with his parents until his death in his early 40s. The ones in between (I'm the youngest) are a passel of gangbangers and drug dealers with so many illegitimate kids, my grandparents couldn't keep track and got in trouble for not sending enough gifts at Christmas.

My brother committed suicide at 16 and I'm 40-year-old childless spinster who spent her 20s in and out of mental hospitals and rehab and only just recently got her act together.

I can't help but wonder what happened. The economy? Vietnam vets who just barely kept it together raising kids who couldn't? Mental illness gene that for some reason only activated in 1959? Downfall of American society? All of the above? I have to wonder.

[atmos]

I've wondered something similar with my family, though slightly different than yours.

My immediate family and my father's side of the family are all basically good people that do well for themselves. None of the five cousins are married yet, but only my oldest cousin and I (I'm 29 he's 32) are old enough, the other three are 17 and 19. My grandparents were wonderful people and it is the side of the family I most enjoy spending time with. They're basically everything I think family should be.

On my mom's side, she's really the only one who did very well for herself. She went to college, got a good government science job, got her Masters degree, and made a good home for us. All of her siblings are pretty poor and backwoods folk. Which in general is fine, plenty of good people don't have much, but a lot of them are lazy, drugs, in jail, etc.

After working heavily on my family history I find her ancestors were hard working and well respected people. Poor farmers, but fought in the Civil War, were pioneers, and well respected in their growing communities who took an interest in civic matters.

But, I've also found in genealogy that it's not all that it seemed back then. There were plenty of fights between siblings detailed in letters. Extramarital affairs. Illegitimate children. Divorces (the most of which happened in my family from about 1900 to 1920, and not really after that). It was just swept under the rug compared with what we might hear about today.

It really is interesting how quickly things seem to change between generations, though, and what stays the same.

ETA: Your use of the word "spinster" reminded me...looking at old marriage certificates from the colonial period in the US, if a woman was 25+ years her name was always followed by a comma and then "spinster". As I'm older than that with no plans on marrying yet, I got a chuckle from it.