“Come mothers and fathers, throughout the land, and don’t criticize what you can’t understand. Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command . . . For the times they are a-changin’.” In 1964, when Bob Dylan released that title track from his album by the same name the protest song addressed the social and political turmoil of that era. Today the tune is used in a number of TV commercials and the lyrics remain hauntingly relevant in the 21st century.
Boomers, do you ever look back and wonder what happened to the world we once knew? To say that things are different is a vast understatement. Remember when life used to be so simple?
Back in the day, when you heard that someone you knew had gotten engaged or married the immediate thought was that it was a heterosexual union. Today it could be two males, two females, or a transgender couple. During the time of our youth, a male and female born that way usually died that way. Changing one’s gender – or transgender surgery – was uncommon. And a young child in a nuclear family had a mother and father of the opposite sex, not two same sex mommies or daddies. Life used to be so simple, but times they are a-changin’.