So, I watched Across the Universe with it's interesting take on the 60's. I thought it was very well done. The director, casting, the actors, all did a great job. It was very Moulin Rouge-like in that it was a bazaar take on a musical.

However, the whole time I'm watching it, just like when I watch old movies, I'm wishing I'd been alive in the 50's. Having been born in the late 70's, I know most people my age would have wanted to experience the 60's with the whole sex, drugs and rock-n-roll thing, but not me.

I long for a simple time when family values meant something. A time when divorce rates weren't 50% and kids weren't killing kids. A time when people like Paris Hilton would be embarrassed of her behavior, not put up on a pedestal for young kids to look up to.

I want to know what it's like to live in a world where you can leave your door unlocked and pick up hitchhikers without worrying that they're going to kill you. I want to live in a time when men were men and women were women. I know that may sound strange because women fought so hard for equality, but did we win, really?

Sure, now women can work but it's not a choice so much as a requirement. Most households need two incomes to survive, leaving kids to be raised by babysitters in a world where you can't trust anyone. If you want to work, that's great; but think of all the women who'd like to be able to stay home with their kids and can't. It's sad.

I'm lucky because I do get to stay home, but I had to tailor my life to make that happen. I started working from home straight out of college so that when the time came that I did have children, I would have a stable enough position that I could stay home and still bring in an income.

As it is right now, I'm able to take a break from working so that I can focus more on my baby. In the meantime, my husband and I pinch our pennies, never living beyond our means and we're okay with that. Our priority has always been family over material things.

The 80's were all about material things with yuppies and Wall Street. Personally, I loved being a teenager, living right outside Seattle during the 90's. Grunge made it cool to be poor in a sense. I didn't have the pressures of having to buy name brand clothes and $200 shoes.

Now, well now Bush is in office and this decades been a disaster. All I can do is hope for something better to come in the future. Still, I'll hold onto my dreams of living in the 50's.