As my kids grow I try as much as possible to expose them to cultural references that I think are valuable. Obviously, these are things that I think are valuable but I do like to think that I’ve learned something in all my years. I was talking to my youngest son about a couple of books the other day along this line. He mentioned George Orwell’s Book: 1984. (An interesting sidenote – I told my brother in 1967 that I wanted to wait until 1984 to read it and then forgot about that conversation. Christmas 1983 he put it under the Christmas tree for me – I was quite surprised that he remembered. I waited the week and started reading it on the 1st of January 1984 – completed it a few days later. )
My son asked me about this book, 1984 and my reply was that I much preferred Aldous Huxley’s novel, Brave New World. Even then, in the 60’s when I and my friends were reading books like this, we agreed that the prediction by Huxley of everyone in that future society being on some mood altering drug was a BAD thing. Now 40 years later it is accepted as the norm. What changed? Many small changes over many years that conditioned us to accept things we never would have before. Time to wake up.
Here is a great article on the whole teen and depression screening procedure and its effectiveness:
Teen Screen
