Who or What is to Blame for the Decline of Morality?

I think we can all look around and say, "things just aren't the way they used to be." Now, there are monumental events that cause our society to change. But I firmly believe the monumental events are the effect rather than the cause. For years, I have wondered what the correlation was, between the assassination of our President in 1963 and the removal of prayer in school in 1962. I've made reference to the great depression and the roaring twenties, the revolution in the 60's and 70's, and the list goes on and on, I am sure. What I think we can see, is each generation contributes to the erosion. You know, a few years ago, with the former leadership, much of America seemed to think the baby boomers would be the cause of the fire and brimstone. Now, it would seem, with the present administration, those same Americans think, maybe it's not the entire generation, after all. All things considered, each generation has made contributions, both positive and negative. What I don't think we all consider, is that the way we view things may be part of the problem. I think some of the things we have considered to be very positive for society, have been to the moral detriment of our nation. And some of the things regarded as negative may have been more illuminating than some are willing to see. And you know, most of life is in the perception. I was one of those kids that had a stay at home mom, because both my parents' moms worked. That in itself is interesting, in that we all assumed it was the youth of the sixties that were anti-establishment. Oh, contrare. I remember my grandmas both saying they had grown up on a farm and wouldn't ever live on a farm again, so they had jobs. And I insisted upon doing things in a different way than my parents. And of course, my daughter is doing things in a way that is unlike the way I raised her. Do we see a theme here? And yet, different hasn't seemed to bring about restoration of what? Maybe if we really knew how things had been previously, we would at least be aiming at an accomplishment, rather than avoidance. My parents and grandparents used to tell me all the things my parents did growing up. Sounded great to me, but I couldn't do all those things. The reason? Well, their mothers had to work, so they had time alone to go places and do things. Well, you can imagine, from a kid's perspective, I desperately wanted a working mother. I naturally presumed I would have more freedom if my mother didn't have so much free time. Oh, by the way, I discovered that free time and motherhood do not fit into the same life, much less the same sentence. A number of my friends had mothers that worked, and basically we all turned out probably about the same. So, it isn't working moms verses stay at home moms. And it isn't country living verses city living. My daughter is a working mother and her children are wonderful. And of course, that is not a biased view because they are my grandchildren. And we can't really pin it down to one generation that threw the monkey wrench in the works. So what is the deal? We've discussed the women, what about the men? Did our national morality decline, when fewer men became self-employed? There was a time when most men were self-employed, either business owners or farmers. Well, I am not blaming the men, here, either, although I believe when men had to start "taking orders" to feed their families, it did permeate beyond the workplace into the home. Anybody remember, "You kids just wait, til your father gets home!" And most of us didn't have to be very old to realize, Dad was dealing with us, so he didn't have to deal with Mom!
Here is what I believe to be the problem. It is not the men, it is not the women, working in or outside the home, it isn't really even the industrial revolution, but that did sort of emphasize the already established direction. Erosion is such a difficult thing to pinpoint the beginning, because it's beginning is so subtle and unnoticed. It begins with one of the first discernable words a toddler speaks: MINE. And it develops from there. Humanity likes to aquire and to do that, we must have money, because we find very soon, the simple declaration of MINE doesn't get us the stuff we want. That is why this is so difficult to find the offending generation or gender, because we all want stuff. We want to be comfortable, we want to give our kids stuff. We begin to equate stuff with accomplishment and sadly we use stuff to replace time and love, while we are accomplishing. And to have stuff, take care of our stuff, and give other people stuff, we need money. And since we think we need more stuff than we do, we spend more money than we ought. And since we spend more than we should, we have to make more than we have. And somewhere in the mix of it all, we find; we love the ability to amass and love the feeling it gives us, and before long, we must admit we love money.

For the love of money is the root of all evil: