Growing Up in the 60s

Most children grow up with dreams, visions in their minds about how their lives will turn out and what they will accomplish.  Few of these visions, it seems, turn into reality.  For instance, during my childhood, I went through phases where I was sure that I would grow up to be an inventor, a writer, and a nutritionist. And now I’m studying business.  My childhood ambitions seem to have not been very predictive of my future.  While reading articles from a 1963 copy of Life magazine, I found an article about a teenager growing up in the 60s who became increasingly unsure of what her future would hold.

            Cathy had dreamed from age six that she would one day become a nun as a way to serve God.  She (against all odds) held on to this ambition until age nineteen and then left her family and lifestyle behind to join the covenant.  The article describes her journey and transition from a typical nineteen-year-old to the covenant and documents her thoughts along the way.  One line jumped out to me in particular; as Cathy first entered the covenant, wearing the customary nun attire that she had envisioned herself wearing since grade school, she asked, “Is it really me?” She was excited and eager to work for the qualities she wanted: selflessness, certainty, and strength, but still unsure of her identity, as many people are at such a young age.  It’s hard to imagine knowing exactly what you want to do at my age, nineteen, let alone dedicating yourself to that role and committing to it.  In Cathy’s case, she decided that the covenant wasn’t for her, and she left soon after joining to go to college.

            This article to me shows a lot of similarity in growing up in the 1960s with today.  Cathy’s parent’s encouraged her, similarly as many parents today would, to follow her dreams.  Cathy’s family was similarly upset when they dropped her off at the covenant, just as mine were after leaving me at TCU, showing that, at least in Cathy’s case, the family dynamics seem to be largely the same as today’s family relations.  The major difference I noticed was the article’s depiction of becoming a nun.  The topic seems largely unnoticed in today’s society; I’ve never heard or read about the process of joining a covenant.  This article gave a very sincere and overt explanation of the spiritual journey of profession, describing the spiritual goals, sacrifices, and role of God in the process.  I don’t see any major article today even mentioning topics such as this, and if they do, they seem to take a role that attempts to avoid endorsing any particular belief.  It’s interesting to compare how religion is portrayed in entertainment in the 60s and today.  From what I’ve seen, there seems to have been a general secularization of what our society writes about.  Religion has been slowly fading from public society since the 60s.  This is supported by other articles that I saw in the 60s Time that discussed the issue of prayer in public schools, which was actually outlawed in the early 1960s.  It’s interesting to see how society’s values and concerns have changed so much since the 60s yet family life seems to have remained quite constant.