Where have all the flowers gone?

I often wonder, where the soulful songs of Neil Diamond, Paul Anka, Cliff Richards, Abba and so many more, have gone. With the rise of rock stars like Lady Gaga, Eminem and their likes, where is music heading to? What is in this music that draws youngsters towards them, if you hear the lyrics – it is like any other adult movie, with four letter words, swear words and drugs. This is the new age! They even release a censored version for public broadcast! I often ask my younger son, who is a very accomplished piano and guitar player, what he enjoys in such kind of music, he says, mom you will never understand.

Our childhoods were stress free with almost no pressures, no Tiger Moms, no examination phobia, and NO IPODS, COMPUTERS, no 200 CHANNELS TV and NO GADGETS,  no MALLS or MULTIPLEXES! There was no competition to keep up with the joneses!! It was a very simple life. We went out for picnics, sometimes watched movies in theaters and watched whatever was one the one channel on TV, which was only aired from 6pm to 10pm. Just half an hour a day from 8pm to 8:30pm. My children today do not believe it. I came across a facebook post lately, which is so true:

The last SANE generation! - We are the last sane generation that learnt to play in the street, we are the first who've played video games, seen cartoons in color and went to amusement parks. - We were the last to record songs of the radio on cassettes and we are the pioneers of walk-mans and chat rooms... ...We Learned how to program the VCR before anyone else, play with the Atari,.................. Super Nintendo and believed that the Internet would be a free world. - We are the generation of the Thunder Cats, Scooby Doo, Tom And Jerry, Jungle Book, Popeye, G.I. JOE. Traveled in cars without seat belts or air-bags - lived without cell phones. Rode our bicycles down the road without brakes. We never had phone but still kept in touch. We did not have Play stations, 99 television stations, flat screens, surround sound, mp3s, iPods, computers and the Internet, ...but nevertheless we had a GREAT
Time !!! ...

To add to this we lived without air-conditioning, power cuts or no power cuts at the peak of summer, no invertors too! We were happy. Today homes come with all these necessities, which are no more luxuries. I guess we have moved with times, and try to give our children everything they demand and live in a fear of competition. Kids spend enormous amount of money to celebrate their birthdays at malls and restaurants unlike our times where birthdays were more like a family affair with cakes and snacks. Today we have theme parties for even toddlers!

I guess, kids today have too much of stress – to score over 95% in school, admission stress and so they kind of identify with music which is so stressful for us to listen to for us! Do they feel relaxed or simply want to forget the pressures around them find solace in stress itself?

I wonder if it is possible to give our children the childhood we had! Sigh!