What We Really Miss About The 1950s

I was not surprised that Stephanie Coontz suggested in "What We Really Miss About The 1950s" that 1950s is voted as one of the bests decades to grow up in. I have heard my mother, who was a teenager during the 50s, say the same thing many times. My mother loved that time in her life, and thinks back to it fondly. Considering the decades that came before the fifties it is not surprising that so many felt about the fifties in that same way. After experiencing so much difficulty and pain, the war and Depression, who could blame them to want more hope and happiness in their lives even at the cost of it being a facade as Coontz suggested.
Thinking back to the 50s I would have never thought of it as being a facade. However, if the facts that Coontz used are accurate it sounds more like a facade than true reality. I think the TV programs during this time is a perfect example of the facade of that time. I recall hearing that the word "pregnancy" was not allowed to be used on shows like "I Love Lucy" yet according to Coontz, "teenage birth rates during the 1950s were twice as high in 1957 as in the 1990s." I would never have guessed that would be the case. Stereotypically, I think of the 1950s as morally squeaky clean, like the sitcoms of the day make it appear.
In "Changing American Families", I was taken back on how Judy Aulette defined the four characteristics of the middle class. At first glance I didn't agree with her, yet as she went through each characteristic I realized that they are characteristcs that are not uncommon for a middle class family to practice, but from my perspective they aren't characteristics I use to define the middle class. From my perspective the "class" that someone is labeled in is more defined by their income and life style, rather than someone who tends to replace their extended family with friends, or who shares their resources lineally. I agree that it is common that these four characteristics can appear within a middle class family, however I take the perspective that it comes by necessicity rather than something a middle class family looks for. For example, to ensure that your family's needs are provided for parents may make the decision that they need to relocate the family, and as a consequence this may cause great distance between extended family members. Ideally, they would have liked to live closer to their extended family, but that may not be possible, so people who are around them tend to become an adopted family. Not that their extended family isn't important to them.