I originally started this blog post 2/13/09 but as you can see it never seen the light of day. Even though we are not quite near Valentine’s Day I still wanted to share my thoughts on that Good Old Fashioned Love…

So Valentines Day is tomorrow February 14th the day that single women and tight pocketed men dread the most! The commercialism surrounding this day is controversial and debatable. I could appreciate the concept behind Valentines Day but not the origin. If you love someone you should be able to show that every chance you get because life is not guaranteed and you never know if today is the last day you will share with your loved one’s.

Ok so on to my title “Good Old Fashioned Love…” My generation and the generation that is coming up just do not understand the value in a solid relationship. If you look at your parents, your grandparents and your great-grandparents they may have a love that withstood the test of time. What was happening in their time that provoked such dedication and why don’t we have it?

My personal belief is that the idiot box a.k.a the television single handily killed the dedication. Media and the internet killed the personal connection that we once shared! The message today is “be yourself” which really means “be what we market to you”. People are obsessed with the so-called “Celebrity” and take their lifestyle as the bible.  So let’s look at “marriage” in the media, it all boils down to money! Who has what? who gets what in the pre-nup (if any) it’s like these people marry to anticipate the divorce all for publicity to get that reality show or to sell music, etc. Meanwhile the followers (that’s you and I) look on and some may have an Oprah moment “Girl I know he didn’t make her sign that pre-nup! When I get married I’ll make sure I get half and then some when I divorce”. SMH We are training the universe to deliver our demise before we give our future a chance. Who or what coached this type of thinking in our society?

There is another aspect of why our generation just does not have that profound “Good Old Fashion Love” and it’s called woman’s liberation! The woman of today is far from the woman of yester year. The woman of today works and pays bills. The woman of today makes her own decisions. The woman of today is outspoken and opinionated. The woman of today is a single parent. The woman of today is bombarded with a flawless images they must compete with day in and day out. I am all for woman’s liberation but in a way I feel like we have been stripped of certain characteristics of what a woman is! We’re so busy trying to be Independent and secretly suffer from not being able to be our natural selves which is a nurturer, caregiver, lover, friend, merciful being that God created us to be. Everything and everyone MUST evolve so I’m not retiring my dreams to slap on an apron for whoever may come along but I do find personally that when I am in love I do tend to cater to my man almost by default (but that’s another blog post).  Furthermore, Yes I make my own money but I want him to treat me  and it’s not the material aspect of it all more than the thoughtfulness. No matter how strong or how paid a woman is she will always want to know that her man is willing and capable of taking care of her needs and wants and to protect her. Everybody wants to feel cared for and no one was born to walk this life alone (just my thoughts).

The final reason (of course there are many) I feel we don’t have that Good Old Fashioned Love is The American Education System failed us, Welfare and the Economy! What kind of education did we have in the 80′s and 90′s? Little by little the school system deleted home economics, socialism, music and other vital programs from the curriculum. Many kids (especially young black boys) were dropping out of school left and right. This lack of education can only produce a certain breed of human beings who are not productive enough to have much of a healthy anything. Some may say well that was the parents responsibility to make sure their children stayed in school and focused but look at what happened to households once the economy changed and welfare came into play. Broken homes and for the homes that were not broken two parents had to work to pay the bills.

We are still living in such society where unprepared and uninformed people raise children in a cycle of love is money and materialistic items equals your worth.  Gone are the days of family and structure there are way too many distractions nowadays. These are just my thoughts and I know there is so much that can be added to this topic and debated.

Back in the days there was more of a family structure in households than there is today. Some may argue that there was a lot of family secrets as well like abuse, adultery, etc.. and this is true but in comparison to now the structure was there because said behavior still exist today. I consider myself an old soul and if I could incorporate the positive aspects of the women of yesterday and the woman of today I would and I am trying because personally the two has alot to offer towards the making of a great woman. If we all, men and women, could incorporate the hard work ethic of yesterday and smart savviness of today along with the rule of family is the foundation to success and is sacred we all would know what Good Love is and some of us are blessed to know but most of us? eh!

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