Hoping History Doesn't Repeat

I am a crier.

I cry at many movies (even Clerks II), television shows (anything on Animal Planet) and while listening to music (Jungleland live did it).

But, I didn't really think that I'd cry no less than six times while at a G-rated movie with my kids. A G-rated American Girl doll movie. How lame am I?

The movie, Kit Kittredge, was much funnier, smart and enjoyable than I expected. It was also heart-breakingly sad in its depiction of the Great Depression and what it did to 'ordinary families'. Fathers left their wives and kids for work and then disappeared, leaving children confused and sad. Homes were emptied of their contents in front of the weeping occupants by debt collectors. Wealthier children made fun of their poorer classmates for selling eggs or wearing grain sack dresses. Fathers snuck into soup kitchens for a warm meal but told their family that business was doing fine.

I may have been PMS-ing to be so emotional, or perhaps it was because I had recently heard that neighbors had left their home abruptly in the dark of night rather than wait for foreclosure proceedings to begin. Or, maybe it was the thought that heating prices this winter could get so high, we could be facing "New England's own Katrina disaster".

My kids did not shed a tear (although they did love the movie). To them, it was a tale of some long-ago time, back when women wore dresses and typewriters used ribbons of ink.

Come January, however, the concept of Americans really struggling to make ends meet not seem like a historical tale. I just hope that it never hits too close to home.