Finally feeling old…

/ 31 August 2007

The Beloit College Mindset list for the class of 2011 is out, and now I feel old! Kids entering college today were born in 1989 — exactly when Eric and I started trying to have children. It didn’t happen for us for a number of years, but clearly I’m old enough now that I could be the parent of these kids. Then there are the political elements of the list (broadly construed). For instance:

1. What Berlin wall?
2. Humvees, minus the artillery, have always been available to the public.
...
8. General Motors has always been working on an electric car.
9. Nelson Mandela has always been free and a force in South Africa.
...
15. Russia has always had a multi-party political system.
16. Women have always been police chiefs in major cities.
17. They were born the year Harvard Law Review Editor Barack Obama announced he might run for office some day.
...
23. Wal-Mart has always been a larger retailer than Sears and has always employed more workers than GM.
...
27. Al Gore has always been running for president or thinking about it.
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39. Fox has always been a major network.
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42. Women's studies majors have always been offered on campus.
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46. Most phone calls have never been private.

This list is a mixed bag -- some things I would call progress, some things feel like huge steps backward. But ALL OF THEM are issues or campaigns I've been working on since college. And that's really the thing that gets me, because they're "old news" to these kids.

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