One Generation from Forgotten

Was there ever a time you wondered why your parents didn’t teach you certain things, and wished they had? Personally, I wish Mom had taught me more about managing money and keeping books; she was wonderful at it, but it wasn’t something that was actively instilled in us. There are a few times I wish an elder had sat me down for a stern talking-to—I would have listened much more than they thought.

But I digress. The larger point I am making is that our children don’t just learn from school. They learn from home, friends, TV, and social media. Somewhere along the line, as convenience came for a visit and never left, we lost the foundations of responsibility, accountability, and the basic knowledge of how to take care of ourselves.

The Shift from Wisdom to Convenience

When parents and grandparents don’t pass on the “old ways,” that knowledge simply evaporates. As technology progresses, it can make us a bit lazy, convincing us that we don’t need that old information anymore. Convenience replaces tradition, but something precious always seems to get lost in the transition.

Think about how much has changed in just a couple of generations:

• Real Food & Preservation: Grandma had a root cellar in her basement where she kept all of her canned goods and fresh veggies from the garden. She could always grab something wonderful from that cellar, even if it had been sitting there for months. Today, we struggle to keep supermarket produce fresh for two days after bringing it home. Canning, preserving, freezing, drying, and crushing used to be staple household tasks. We’ve forgotten how simple it is to make our own butter, grow our own beans, and bake our own bread.

• Holistic, Attentive Care: Mom and Grandma used to know exactly how to treat us when we were sick or scraped up. When I was a child, if we had a rash, the first thing the doctor asked was if Mom had changed laundry detergents, introduced a new food, or if we’d been playing in the woods. Questions were asked before a diagnosis was given because doctors actually knew their patients. Today, Mom heads to an office job instead of stocking the pantry with homemade remedies for a rainy day.

The Modern Crunch

Because of this shift, many of us are now forced to try and cram into three or four years the deep wisdom that took our mothers and grandmothers a lifetime to learn and perfect.

We are talking about the essential knowledge of cooking with love, refusing to waste a single thing, storing and processing food, and understanding how to truly feed, love, and nurture a family. It is a profound responsibility, and it’s not a job to be taken lightly.

Bringing the Knowledge Back Home

So much of this heritage has been hidden from us, and many of us are now digging deep to unearth it.

Healthy Life Creative Life intends to bring back this lost knowledge. My goal is to point you toward helpful resources and teachers who are willing to share what they know. I spent years gathering a little wisdom here and a little there, and I want to pull it all together so you have a beautiful place to start transforming your own life—at your own pace, and in your own way.

We don’t want your journey to be a struggle. If we don’t actively bring these traditions back into our homes, they will be lost forever. After all, we are always only one generation away from forgotten.