Children Have Overblown View of What Was Accomplished in the ‘60s

“You’re studying what in school?”

“I told you, mom. The ‘60s . . . “

(So soon it is history?)

” . . . and it sounds pretty interesting but I have to do a report.”

“So?”

“Well, tell me about it.

“What did you do in the ‘60s, Mother?”

In the 1980s, I am tempted to smile smugly when the children ask about the 1960s, to imply an intimate knowledge of pot and speed, hedonistic revels and be-ins; to encourage them to believe that the ‘60s were years of glorious excesses and sensational experiences, a gleeful leap from one peak of gratification to another.

In my 40s, I am reluctant to shatter the myth, to set the record straight and to admit that, for most of us in San Diego, the ‘60s were very ordinary years.

We did not march or meditate. We did not chant slogans or mantras. We did not do drugs and we did not drop out.

Most of us, entering our 20s in the ‘60s, graduated from San Diego State University, found jobs, married, bought homes in San Carlos and became parents. We drove the freeway to work and back each week day and played tennis on the weekends.

Nora Ephron wrote in “Heartburn”:

“I am always interested when people talk about the ‘60s in the kind of hushed tone that is meant to connote the seriousness of it all, because what I remember about the ‘60s was that people were constantly looking up from dessert and saying things like: ‘Whose mousse is this?’ ”

I remember people saying, “Whose serve is it?”

I remember the ‘60s in San Diego as years of tennis lessons and tournaments. I remember being terribly concerned whether it was appropriate to wear the new color-coordinated tennis clothes, instead of the traditional white, on the club courts. I remember decisions to make about shoes: Tretorns or adidas? About racquets: wood or metal? About tennis balls: white or neon yellow?

There was little else to concern us. No specters of unemployment, recession or depression stalked us. We were content to believe that the new Peace Corps would improve our relations with foreign governments and that President John F. Kennedy, with advice from the best and the brightest, would keep us safe and prosperous at home.

The hippies, Haight-Ashbury and the communes did not attract us, for they meant seediness, poverty and dirt. In the early ‘60s, we felt no sense of urgency to publicly protest the Vietnam War, for no one we knew was in danger of the draft--marriage and parenthood exempted us. The few people we did know who protested it were, we thought, political groupies who flocked to causes attracted by the snappy slogans; naive people who believed that change would occur by outshouting the opposition in the streets.

When we heard rumors of college classmates who had dropped out, we suspected that it was the lure of the nudity, free love and hassle-free dope more often than high principles and noble philosophies that attracted them to gurus and to the harsh and primitive life in isolated communes.

I remember the ‘60s as a time when young people were well-educated but still naive, when glib rhetoric replaced rational thought, when it was easy for us to say what we were against but difficult for us to tell what we were for. For all the lip service paid toward making the world a better place for others, we began nearly every sentence with the word I.

In the 1980s, our children appear to believe that the 1960s were years when young people influenced national policy to create a better world. That is, perhaps, the greatest ‘60s myth of all.

In 1963, when James Baldwin wrote “The Fire Next Time”; Betty Friedan “The Feminine Mystique,” and Rachael Carson “Silent Spring,” it did appear as if we were ready for real political and social change. But 23 years later, there is concern that blacks have not moved forward, have not even held their ground, but have slipped even further behind the white community.

The equal rights amendment has yet to be ratified. The effects from acid rain and toxic chemical dumps are more threatening than anything Carson wrote of.

A generation after demonstrators took to the streets to protest our involvement in Vietnam, they would now not be limited to a single cause but could call our attention to a score of countries where our involvement is suspect; or they could warn us of the even greater horror of worldwide nuclear holocaust.

“What did you do in the ‘60s, Mother?”

“Sat on the floor of a family room in a split-level in University City on Saturday nights and, behind drawn draperies, listened to Peter, Paul and Mary on a state-of-the-art stereo while someone dared me to try pot.”

In 1986, we are hypocrites to allow our children to believe that we did more; to believe that our generation was committed to create a brave new world; to criticize them for wanting nothing more than MBAs on their resumes and Cuisinarts in their kitchens in the have-it-all ‘80s. Have we forgotten that in the go-go ‘60s we were willing to settle for bachelor’s degrees and Teflon-coated frying pans?

“What did you do in the ‘60s, Mother?”

In our 40s in the 1980s, we should be honest enough to answer: “Nothing,” or say nothing at all.