As I sit and write this hub, I think back when my girls were little and we use to take my parents shopping. My dad would go in the store and start grumbling "Why do they have to keep changing things around? I use to know exactly where things was, now I have to hunt it down". Then I would have to explain to my dad how life would be boring if things always stayed the way they are. Years down the road, I was in a hurry and I needed something quick at the store. Upon rushing in I knew exactly what I wanted and where it was...until I got to that area and it was no longer there. I made the mistake of making the same grumble complaint that my father did. So naturally my youngest daughter had to remind me that life would be boring if there were never any changes....

As I get older, I'm finding it a bit scary, I'm starting to get set more and more in my ways. What ever happen to me saying: "If I ever start doing this.... or "If I ever start doing that...Then it's time to put me down" (as I joked with my kids). So now I have to ask: Which generation do I belong to?

If you were to ask my kids (and maybe even my grand kids), they would definitely tell you that I'm the "Old Generation" That I need to get up to speed with today's reality. And if you ask my elders they would tell me that I'm just a young whipper snapper and that I'm just the this New Generation that thinks we know it all. So I can't help but wonder where do I fit?

I had to listen many times the story of how far my mom had to walk everyday in snow, rain, sleet and even sometimes by boat back and forth to school. By the time I went to school, buses were invented (okay, I'm not that old). As I raised my girls, walking just a block to school was too far for them!

My mom and dad didn't have TV while growing up and dad's toys were made out of wood while mom's dolls were made out of scraps of left over materials. When I was growing up, I had real dolly's to play with and Barbies. Cable TV was becoming the "big' thing back then. In today's world dolly's can almost do anything a human can and as for the toys for boys, well it's no good unless it can do this or can do that-electronically. It seems to me that toys are now made with some kind of computer chip in them to make them function.

Do little boys and girls even play with tonka trucks or dolls anymore? Or how about board games? I use to love playing board games and now my grand kids, well they think I'm from out space. The only games they seem to know are computerized or electronical.

Sometimes I feel like I don't belong in the "Old Generation" because I'm too young to know what hardship is really all about-even though I have endeared my own hardship. I don't belong in the "New Generation" because as I do get older I get more organized and I'm getting to where I want to know where things are and set in my ways (which I swore that I would never do, because I didn't want to turn out like my parents). My daughters favorite saying is that "I'm Old" and that I just don't know what I'm talking about. And my elders tell me that I'm still wet behind the ears and I have a lot to learn about life yet. So which am I-young or old?

I love to sit with my elders and listen to their stories about how they had live their lives. They are the most fascinating people out there. You can almost see the pain in their eyes as they tell their stories. In today's world, Kids really don't know what it's like to go without or not to be able to work for what they want.

My dad would have given anything to finish schooling, but wasn't able to due to the fact that he had to work at the age of 14 to make it out in the world. And I was grateful to be able to have a part time job at the age of 16 and still be able to be in school. I earned my first car without my parents buying it. I started to buy my own clothes-the style that I liked, not my parents. Today it seems all I hear is about how a parent has gone broke buying their child another car because they wrecked the first one. And how high the insurance is.

My mom and dad use to spank me when I was bad and usually not with their hands. I did spank my girls when they were naughty, but I refuse to use a belt, or ruler as my parents used on me. I believed that if I hurt-they hurt. So I knew when to draw the line. But now my oldest daughter does not spank her children and if you even look at them cross eye-well, they are ready to call the abuse hotline!

As much as I love my grand kids, I also have a hard time being around them. They don't know how to play nicely with each other. They each have to have their own little computer games and cannot share (I don't think that word is in their vocabulary). They jump on furniture, run through the house like little Indians, screaming and hollering. The name calling is just unbelievable. The respect-well I know they don't know what that means....

I look at my daughter and (I tell her one thing I swore that I would never say): "You were not brought up that way. Why do you let them act that way?" She looks at me as though I onced beat her to death and locked her in a closet (which I never did). She tells me that I neglected in allowing her to express herself and therefore she is just allowing them to be "kids".

As each day goes by, that 50 mark gets closer. Yeah I have a few more short years to go, but I still feel lost in between two generations; I'm too young-I'm too old...

Brian and I were activity director for a few years in a senior park down south. My husband use to tell people that we were glorified babysitters for the senior! I sit back and I almost have to laugh, because he about hit it on the nose. I think at times they could be worse the children! (sorry, folks). They would grumble and complain if one tiny thing would change. One day one of them made that mistake to me and I couldn't resist making the comment back to her by if she didn't like changes, then why was she down south for the winter, or why is she driving instead of walking-like she use to do back in the "old days"? she never complained to me again.

So, one last time: Which generation do I belong to-Old or New Generation? I guess that will remain a mystery to me for a few more years....