The Times, They Are A Changing

Some people say that life is about change, and acceptance. But, while some things change, others will stay the same through many generations. While hindsight is 20/20, that only holds true when we are willing to admit our errors, and remain focused on the end result. Looking back on my past 10 years of researching all of my family lines, there is 1 thread they all have in common. They all began having their families at an early age.Now, there were many reasons for this, and many of them had large families by the time they were done. They lived through very hard times, including droughts and diseases which sometimes led to the death of their young children.
The current generations are no different than their predecessors; except nowadays the family size is much smaller. My own mother gave birth to me when she was only 18. I, in turn had my first child at the young age of 16. My son was just 18, when his daughter was born. Then, finally, my own granddaughter, Norma Hazel decided at a young age that she wanted to have a child of her own. And, just like all parents and grandparents before us, at first,we were not very happy about it, simply due to her young age. We never want our children to make the same mistakes in life that we do. We want nothing but the best for our children, and we want them to have a better life than we had. 
Over the past 2 years, I have witnessed my granddaughter's growth into quite a lovely and strong young woman. She is now the mother of a beautiful baby girl named Elena Marie, and I have been blessed to come to know of her through Facebook. I really look forward to when I can meet her face to face. Yes, I am probably one of the youngest great grandmothers, being only 57 years old. I never got to meet my great grandmother. My further hope is to instill an interest in furthering our family history in both Norma and Elena. I will spend time with them telling them stories about my life, and about the lives of my parents. My own parents and grandparents never did that. Somewhere, that became a lost tradition. I plan to re-new that old tradition. Elena is already showing positive signs of being an early and quick learner. I want to thank my beautiful granddaughter, Norma for giving permission to use both her's and Elena's pictures in this post.