The Tides Of Change

Aug 13, 2023

I was snapping the ends off locally-grown green beans to make as a side dish for dinner tonight, trying to remember where I read you should only snap off the ends if they’re particularly wiry. And I decided I would prepare the beans the same way I have for half a century now because really, who decides these things and broadcasts it to the world? I also read somewhere that you shouldn’t use pepper–only salt–when seasoning a green salad.

Does it feel to you that the younger generations are examining everything we’ve always done under a microscope to select long-held traditions and processes for radical extermination? The new cultural more is to just say no to your mother’s China. It’s all over the internet now—refuse your mother’s sacred objects in her curio cabinets and linen closets. Do not, under any circumstances, accept real silverware, handed down for generations, or cherished Christmas objects, or crotched blankets made by your Aunt Hanna, who, by the way, has not been gone very long.

My girls were visiting over the summer and I was stunned to hear not one of them was lining up for my 18-piece bone China with a 14-karat gold rim. “No one our age wants these kinds of things anymore,” they said, as if I’d just walked out of a Norman Rockwell holding a bottle of castor oil and a spoon in my hand.

“But look,” I said, “the set comes with 18 coffee cups, salad plates, and a few serving dishes, and they look brand new.” They just said “nah,” without the slightest concern they would be offending me.

These kids have so bought into the current zeitgeist they have no shame in tossing away centuries of human evolution and Western culture. How will they ever appreciate the Palace of Versailles in Paris with this attitude?

Will they see it as a tired old replica of grandma’s attic? I mean, what would they possibly want with a gold-leaf desk belonging to Marie Antoinette or a solid gold table boasting a pair of candelabras delivered in 1781 by Claude Quentin Pitoin to Marie Antionette’s Meridienne Room? If they can’t appreciate the past, where does that leave the future? Pastless?

It got me thinking of a tour I led to Bulgaria a few years ago, where the whole country was trying hard to think like a democracy after shrugging off communism in the early 1990’s. Their ancient ancestors, the Thracians, held left gobs of intricate gold jewelry cast about the land that was now buried under many feet of soil. Nobody had ever dug up these priceless artifacts because no one cared about the past. Communist regimes detested the past because they knew that people romanticized it. So, they knocked down statues representing Bulgaria’s forbears, burned beautiful churches, and forbade any archaeology. It makes sense: If you’re going to start a new system of government where people’s attention and allegiance must be to that government, the past has to be scrapped.

Maybe the same kind of sentiment is swirling around the ethos today. Your grandmother’s linen tablecloth? Nobody uses them anymore. Revere Ware pots with copper bottoms? Big yawn. You see, we’re told that Millennials value experiences over material goods. They live in the present and online. Memories are just something they share on Instagram now. They don’t want their Thomas The Tank Engine collectibles you’ve been saving for them or your old Hallmark Christmas ornaments.

Within 50 years, there will be second-hand shops full of all this stuff. When we die, the Millenials will just cast it all away. You might want to sell it all now and go on a really great vacation instead.

The experts say no one should feel pressured to inherit anything they don’t want or need. It’s not really a gift if it comes with strings attached. Although, sometimes, the kids might surprise you. We inherited a set of China from my husband’s father that had belonged to his mother, who’d died young. When one of the kids decided they wanted it, he got in the car and drove it all the way down to Florida. I know that sounds silly, but it was also an opportunity to visit her.

Don’t give up hope, but it’s certainly a warning to Baby Boomer hoarders that minimalism is a thing now. Your Eiffel Tower coasters may one day find their way to Goodwill. And your pepper shakers, too. Pepper just isn’t cool anymore.

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