When I read David McCullough’s John Adams a few years ago, I felt immeasurably inadequate to the likes of Abigail Adams.  If reading big old biographies isn’t your thing, HBO has done a fine job of producing the DVD mini-series, which I highly recommend.  Whenever I think I’ve had a bad week, all I have to do is remember Abigail Adams.

Her husband’s business travel made most of ours—except for military spouses—pale by comparison.  She worked the fields, raised her children, stood for independence and lived without any of the things we take for granted: heat in our bedrooms, washing machines in our laundry rooms, ovens in our kitchen, vaccinations for our children, and Starbucks on every corner.  Ah, the ways the world has changed.

If you jump forward a few generations, my grandmother had heat and some vaccinations for her kids. But in her early years of raising four children she didn’t have a washer or dryer.  And when she passed away a few years ago she still didn’t have a dishwasher.

My grandfather was a wonderful man, but certainly a man of his generation.  Child care, cooking, and cleaning were all my grandmother’s responsibility.  Her four children were born in five and a half years.  Cloth diapers, nighttime duty, and all of the rest were solely up to her.

By the time her children grew up, of course, the world had begun to change.  As young adults, her kids enjoyed many of the same the conveniences we still take for granted.  My parents, aunts, and uncles all had dishwashers and by the time I was in high school, most of them had microwaves, too.  Several of the women in my family had jobs outside of the home and some, some I say, of the dads chipped in a bit more around the house.  Things were looking up.

But, ladies, we’ve got it made.  Our kids don’t die of smallpox, we can throw a load of clothes in the washer—and it gets clean while we do something else.  Not only can we brew a hot cup of java in our own kitchen, we can pop out to the nearest coffee shop if we need a change of a pace.  Most of us have two cars, we have TVs and computers, and we can even bring the movies to our own big screens if we want. 

When I think about the things I wouldn’t want to trade, my very rational self has two very different responses.  The first screams for the practical:  I want vaccines for my children.  Heat.  Indoor plumbing for our family of five.  A stove and oven and refrigerator.  And I don’t even want to consider life without a washing machine.

But there’s the just-for-the-pleasure-of-it side, too.  My iPhone, for one.  L-O-V-E it.  Can’t say enough good things about why I never want to give it back.  A nice cold diet pepsi, which may yet kill me, but sure does hit the spot during a stressful day.  How about the incredible, wonderful convenience of hitting a little button to unlock your car door?  See, friends, I am just old (and frugal) enough that when I had my first baby, in the frozen tundra, I still had to unlock with a key.  I lived through it and have appreciated that little button ever since.  And pay at the pump?  Beautiful.  Abigail Adams wouldn’t believe it.

What about you?  Is there a modern convenience you can’t live without?  

Join the Blog Blast at Parent Bloggers Network and let us know.  This week’s contest is sponsored by Yoplait Kids, which my boys wouldn’t like to live without!