“The 1960’s Love Culture & Teaching How to Draw Boundaries”
by Kelvin Chin
Life After Life Expert
I grew up in the 1960s. We were raised by parents who grew up during or who even fought in World War II.
There was a certain assumption made by most of our parents that you had to work for what you got in life — your studies, job, family…your happiness. And that meant figuring out how to live with boundaries, making choices, prioritizing.
Things weren’t handed to you gift wrapped. They grew up not knowing if there was going to be a “tomorrow.”
That said, in the 1950-60s life was plentiful compared to wartime. No food shortages. No gas ⛽️ rationing. No working in factories to make bombs, planes, ships and ammunition just 10-20 years earlier.
People could begin to relax and breathe. And enjoy life again.
I think many of my generation got spoiled from that sudden post-war abundance.
And then coupled with the anti-Vietnam War movement along with the “Peace and Love” culture, we became further distanced from the realities of what it took to accomplish things in life.
I wonder sometimes if our children and (for some of us) grandchildren may have been raised with too few boundaries. I’m not arguing for strict disciplinarian parenting.
However, I often see today’s parents dropping everything to accommodate their children’s needs and sometimes their whims. Meeting their “needs” I can see. Acquiescing to every “want” I see as problematic.
And this often means the parents sublimating, even ignoring their own needs sometimes to accommodate “whatever my child wants.”
What message are we teaching our kids?
That we are not important and they are all-important?
What lessons about “the gray areas of life” does that teach them? Or does that teach them that life is black and white?
Are we teaching them that all their hopes, dreams and desires — no matter what they are — will be met in life? And what happens when that doesn’t happen?
Have we set our kids and grandkids up for success or failure in life? Adaptability or rigidity? Happiness or disappointment?
Teaching our youth to manage boundaries is a very important life lesson and can mean the difference between inner peace and suffering. I think it’s something to pay attention to.
Kelvin H. Chin is a Meditation Teacher, Life After Life Expert, and Author of “Overcoming the Fear of Death,” “Marcus Aurelius Updated: 21st Century Meditations On Living Life” and “After the Afterlife: Memories of My Past Lives.” He learned to meditate at age 19, and has been teaching Turning Within Meditation and coaching others in their self-growth for 50 years. He helps people understand their life challenges through their individual belief systems, and helps them find their own solutions. His past life memories reach back many centuries, and he accesses those memories in his teaching and his coaching in the same way all coaches draw on their own available experiences for perspective and effective analogies. He can be reached at www.TurningWithin.org.