Family Ties

Well, happy Thursday, Cadre. How are y'all? I hope you are doing great. And if you're not, that's okay, too. My name is JC, and Thursday here in the Cadre Sphere is caregiver day. Whether you are someone who is a caregiver of a child, a parent, a loved one, a neighbor, a stranger, a family, right? We all have the opportunity to give care to other people, and I come in here in the afternoon to spend some time talking about family ties. If you are an old millennial like myself, family ties is a situational comedy television show from the 1980s, and there's something really special about how we can, in about 20 minutes worth of time, look into the household of a family and somehow capture a biopsy.

Right. Just. Just extract a little bit of a family's reality of their story and go, huh? Yep. That is nourishing, or that is relatable, or that is funny, or that is touching, or that is challenging, or that makes me fill in the blank. So here on Thursday, I share a little bit about my family situational comedy in hopes that it strikes a chord for you and maybe creates a little bit of conversation. So I want to raise the phrase today. I wish we could go back to the good old days. How do you feel about that phrase?

I see some people signing in when you hear the phrase, I wish we could go back to the good old days. Who in your world says it? Whether it's you, whether it's family members, whether it's people in your past, people in your present. Do you love that statement? Do you not love that statement? Good afternoon, Jules. Exclamation point. Nice to see you. As you're telling me how you feel about the statement, gosh, I wish we could go back to the good old days. I will wait to tell you about how I feel about that statement as I tell you about the family situational comedy that I live in.

So I am an old millennial. I was born in 1982. I have six Gen x siblings. I have a baby boomer mother, and I have a greatest generation father. Both my mother and my father are the oldest living member of their family trees, which is really unique, right? Like, there's no one older than them in their families. My dad is the oldest of five siblings, and both of his parents have passed on. My mom is the oldest of three siblings, and both of her parents have passed on. So they literally are the oldest branch on their trees.

And I'm the baby of seven millennial, six gen x siblings, boomer mother, greatest generation father. So Jules, thank you for chiming in. I asked the question. The phrase, gosh, I wish we could go back to the good old days. Who in your world uses it? How do you feel about it? Here's how I feel about it. So I am, as I shared, an old millennial in a family with everyone representing different generational realities, I would like to pause for a moment and say happy birthday to Marisa right here in the live stream.

Who just messaged. I didn't even read their message, but I see they messaged, so I had to go and say, happy birthday, my friend. Now I will read their message. Hmm. I think these are the good old days. It's fun to reminisce, but being present is important to me. Awesome. Thank you for sharing. Now I will share. I always say this, and I encourage and challenge and lovingly challenge and encourage my, especially my mother, whenever she goes, gosh, I wish we could go back to the good old days. I go, mom, it's a good thing to Marisa, as you say, to reminisce and to have memories.

But if you are wishing to go back to the good old days as if the current days are awful, I want you to consider mother, who has been in power from the time that you are considering the good old days to be, to now. And then I pause. And then she huffs and puffs and ends the conversation. And that's her way of saying that it's her generation who has been in charge, which is a fancy way of saying that it's her fault, her generation's fault for why the world has moved away from the good old days. You may disagree with me, but I think the idea of wishing to return to the good old days is a really fancy way of saying that we are responsible for the world getting worse.

One of the things I love about our younger generations is they are living with a mentality of we are going to make the world better. They give me a lot of hope because they are going, huh? Right now, we hope that what we are doing is going to make tomorrow better, as opposed to we are going to attempt to return to the good old days. I look right now as a 42 year old, I hope we don't go back to the good old days of my younger years. I hope that doesn't happen. And that doesn't mean that I don't appreciate the memories of me being younger.

So that is what I want you to consider today. How do we extract, how do we peel back the memories? How do we reminisce while at the same time, lovingly critique where we can consider what we've done and how we can maybe learn and move forward. And, Jules, I think you just took the essence of what we're hoping to do here in the Cadre sphere. Jules just said, hmm. I never looked at that statement that way before. Dot, dot, dot. And it's the dot, dot, dot that I think holds the power. I hope that my offering today is not a look at things differently, but to go.

Maybe there is a comma or a dot, dot, dot or this and. Or what if we turn it a little bit? And that's what I think situational comedies offer us the opportunity to go, huh? Yeah. So family ties, this live stream every Thursday. There's always a piano sitting nearby. And we finish this time with a little sitcom theme song to go ahead and add a little music, because music always helps everything, but also to go. Oh, yeah. There's different ways that we look and feel that we think that we experience.

And by golly, there's no better way to think about those good old days than by thinking about Archie and Edith and all in the family. Boy, the way Glenn Miller played songs that made the hit parade guys like me, we had it made those were the days didn't need no welfare state everybody pulled their weight g r. Old LaSalle ran great those were the days and you knew who you were then girls were girls and men were men mister, we could use a man like Herbert Hoover again people see people seem to people I seemed two skirts were long.

Kate Smith really sold a song. I don't know just what went wrong. Those were the days it's so interesting how a song like this goes. Oh, my gosh. It still is so timely. Like, so timely. Um. Like, so timely like, I'm thinking about Kansas city chiefs, kickers, and I'm thinking about Herbert Hoover. And I'm thinking about, like, all of the things. And I think we are better people now than we maybe were back then. Why? Because we've stumbled. Because we've seen maybe our family members try or not try, fail, succeed.

All of the things. So for all of you archies and all of you ediths, and I will say about 20 years ago, I was in a production of the best little whorehouse in Texas. I played the bandleader, and I played opposite none other than Sally Struthers, who won three Emmy awards on all in the family. So I just gave you my icebreaker. So forever at a dinner party. I'm screwed. All right, everybody, have a good rest of your day. We'll talk to you later.