c. 1998 Religion News Service

(Dale Hanson Bourke is publisher of RNS and the mother of two sons.)

UNDATED _”It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way ….” So begins Charles Dickens'”A Tale of Two Cities,”his masterful novel exploring the unraveling of society and the interwoven destruction of personal lives.

Assigned to my son for his freshman English class, I picked up a copy of my own to refresh my memory and was struck by Dickens’ timeless wisdom and understanding of human folly.

Dickens would not be surprised by Monica and Bill, nor by the moralizers or the defenders. What might surprise him is how complacent we seem to be despite the fact that history repeats itself. Americans have enjoyed the best of times for so long we have actually come to believe the ride will last forever.

I am not by nature a pessimist nor do I enjoy hearing from doomsayers. But even the greatest optimist has to pause and contemplate where we Americans sit _ perched atop a growth trend that cannot continue while the rest of the world spirals downward.

And as my son wonders aloud when he will get to”the good part”of his book, I wonder if I _ or any of us _ have adequately prepared our children for what could be the worst of times.

Those of us with children at home have raised them during the headiest times of the U.S. economy. The wild ’80s provided many of us with unexpected income. For those who were conservative, the dip late in the decade was simply a time to ride out a slow period before the even wilder ’90s kicked in.

Our children have grown up during days when peace was expected and war only happened in far-off places. They have watched a nation obsessed with a public murder trial and a public sex scandal, but they have rarely heard public debate over issues that move people to protest or revolt because they believe deeply the principles involved shape our very society.

Unlike my parents, who reminded me regularly about The Great Depression, I have never really explained to my children that times may not always be so good. I have, instead, tried to make them feel secure and in doing so have probably indulged them beyond what might contribute to their true security.

I have also spent most of my child-rearing time focusing my children on the future. We talk about possible careers and interesting colleges. They like to imagine where they will live and almost always paint a picture that includes unlimited resources to do whatever they want.

My children have not heard the stories of my youth _ the tales of relatives who sacrificed everything in order to start life in a new country. The grandfather who almost died as a stowaway on a ship leaving Russia. The great-grandmother who eked out an existence homesteading land in the Dakotas.

I was tied to these ancestors in a very real way. They had sacrificed for the next generations and I felt a sense of gratitude and obligation to them. The bounty and ease of my life only came because they had given so much.

Even the ability to worship freely was tied to my relatives, some of whom left all of their worldly possessions behind in order to come to a land where they could openly worship their God.

I rarely tell my children these stories and when I do, they hear them as if they are a fairy tale. I have instilled in them a sense of timeless individualism. It is as if they have sprung up in this place at this time with full entitlement to a happy and successful life.

There is a pervasive theory of childraising that says we should protect our children from bad news, difficulties and uncertainties. We are told to raise our children in a secure environment in order to give them confidence.

But I wonder if we may have forgotten that children also need a sense of continuity and reality. Times have not always been so good. Times may not be so good in the future. Most of us were prepared for the possibility by our own parents. But few of us have done the same for our children.”A Tale of Two Cities”is just a novel to my son. But to me it is a reminder that times change. They always have and they always will. And part of my job as a parent is to help my children prepare for whatever the future may bring.

DEA END BOURKE