I’ve been wondering lately, just when did Americans turn so soft? When did we turn into a bunch of whiny mopes? Was it overnight or did it happen slowly? It could not have always been this way, or we wouldn’t be here today.

For instance, it’s hard to sit through a single television show and not see an ad for some drug or other. We are urged to take a pill for every little ache or sniffle. It’s as if we all expect to have chronic diseases in the last half of our lives and be medicated for them. Magazines are filled with drug ads. We must be supporting all this, or pharmaceutical companies wouldn’t have the clout they do. Aren’t we supposed to be the people who go on stage when half dead and make sure the show goes on?

The flu shot crisis was an eye-opener. You would have thought that if someone didn’t get a shot, they’d die for sure. I support the option for the frail, even though I don’t know that I’ll ever get one. But when did they start giving them to babies?

And what about all the safety stuff? Do we really think we can keep ourselves and our children completely safe from harm? I grew up after the second world war, a time that, they say, was the first in which children on the whole did not have to help support their families. We had a lot of freedom. Most of the children I grew up with are now parents themselves, but as they grew up, they somehow became restrictive and fearful in raising their own children.

And as we’re seeing, too many people are willing to give up hard won civil liberties for the empty promise of safety. I was truly disappointed when our U.S. Senators and Representatives folded when confronted with jibes about their patriotism and the possibility of smear tactics over the Patriot Act and the war on terrorism. All but a few failed to stand up for what I hope they truly believed; the reasons they were elected in the first place.

We all complain that we’re too stressed, that life is so much more difficult now than in the past. But if you look at the rural life of the past few generations closely, you would not call it stress free. They had to worry if there wasn’t enough rain, or too much. What if it didn’t warm up soon enough in the spring to plant? What if there was an early fall frost? Then there were the bugs and assorted blights. What if you couldn’t get enough help at harvest time? A major injury would likely kill you. Enough wood had to be chopped to keep some semblance of heat in your home or you would freeze. Food had to be canned and preserved to get you through not only until spring, but until the first crops came in. If all this didn’t work, you didn’t just go on unemployment and look for a new job, your very existence was at stake.

If you lived in a city you weren’t any better off. Close conditions and lack of sanitation made serious disease a real likelihood. Women lost more babies than lived, and often died themselves in childbirth. Open fires polluted the air and offered the constant threat of fire. Industry was just plain dangerous, and if you were hurt on the job and couldn’t work, you certainly didn’t get disability. Before running water and central heat, you were just dirty and cold all winter.

Sometimes when I take a driving trip I’m struck by how much distance can be traveled now compared with the past. I think about pioneer women with their families in wagons heading out to a new home. It might have taken months on the road, had there been one. Can you imagine traveling all day, changing and feeding babies, and stopping only to have to start a fire and cook dinner over it? Then washing up dishes in cold water, and sleeping on the ground or the hard wagon floor. No baths, no showers. I wonder how these women felt when they got to where they were headed, not to find a place to stay, but to clear a space, make a shelter, and quick get some fields planted.

When I think about what defines the traditional American outlook, I think of phrases like: Success against all odds. The show must go on. Live and let live. We will fight to protect and preserve our way of life. America is the land of opportunity, there’s nothing I can’t do. We don’t have much, but we’ll share what we have. This is the attitude that built this nation; our tradition of strong self-reliance coupled with real generosity. Maybe as we enter this new year we can stop whining and realize that it is not externals that make us happy, improve our health, make us safe, or give us jobs. It’s us, with our indomitable spirit that makes all things possible, and offers hope for the future.