What things when younger did you think were more important than they turned out to be?

[nearwildheaven]

I started a thread about this very topic some time back.

Spinoff of the "people dropping in unannounced" thread

One of the posts reminded me of the Family Circus cartoons, which periodically have the boss at the dinner table. I’m not talking about the whole department going out and socializing, that kind of thing, but specifically having your boss and his wife (yes, that was deliberate) as your dinner guest, with the kids all freshly scrubbed and on their best behavior (you hope) and of course Mom has to prepare the food. Does anyone actually do this kind of thing any more, or ever did? Just curious. …

People dropping in unannounced is also not the thing it presumably used to be, either. When I was growing up, the house always had to look like something out of BH&G in case this happened, which it didn’t.