"The hardest job kids face..."

Fred Astair lived from May 10, 1899 to June 22, 1987. For the purposes of this post I'd like that 1987 to be a bit earlier (no offense Mr. Astair), but it will do.

At some point during his life, he said the following:

"The hardest job kids face today is learning good manners without seeing any."

It's important to realize that he died in 1987. So at the very latest, he must have been talking about "kids" in 1986 or 1987. Given this, the "kids" he was talking about would now be between 20 and 40 years old (roughly ages 0-20 in 1986). Again, this is assuming the latest possible date he could have made this comment.

Why is this important? Well, next time any one between those ages tries to tell you about the lack of "manners" kids have these days compared to their day, keep in mind that Fred Astair thought the same thing about them way back when they were kids. And any time some one over those ages tries to tell you how parents don't set good examples for their kids... well... guess who was "not setting" a good example for all those kids Astair is talking about.

Just another example of how things really aren't worse today than they were back then. The good old days weren't always good, and (today or tomorrow) ain't as bad as they seem.