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This unique Feature article comprises a collage of contributions submitted by family and consumer sciences (FCS) practitioners from around the world (also called home economics, human ecology, and human sciences). As Interim Editor (this is my last issue), I reached out to FCS/home economists from all generations (Millennial, Generation X, and Boomers) and asked them to share their thoughts on the future of the profession. Their ideas (represented in their own words) are showcased here. May their musings stimulate your thoughts about ensuring our future. We have a responsibility to future-proof the profession and the discipline, which entails anticipating future developments so actions can be taken now to minimize negative consequences and seize opportunities (Pendergast, McGregor, & Turkki, 2012).
Dr. Gwendolyn Hustvedt, Texas State University (United States)
The generation sandwiched between the postwar baby boom and the 1980s baby boom, popularly but not always happily known as Generation X, came of age during massive societal shifts that had a direct impact on their perspective on the nature of home, family, and professionalism. Leadership for this generation was leadership into the third wave of feminism. With the 1980s being the signature decade for this cohort, and while the generation has been stereotyped as the "slacker" generation, our hard-won distrust of the stability of fundamental structures of society was shaped by AIDS, trickledown economics, divorce/single parenthood, and the two-income family. The home economics leaders in the U.S. who emerged from this generation are only dimly aware of the conflicts between the profession and second-wave feminism-conflicts that led to the abandonment of the global name of the profession, home economics, for a distinctly North American moniker, family and consumer sciences. Sitting in our women's studies courses (graciously provided by second wave activists), we asked ourselves "What is wrong with being feminine?" If we love sewing and cooking, why should we have to give them up just to conform to someone else's definition of a strong woman? So many of us were raised in basically empty homes, and we are eager to fill our lives with quality of life, which has always been the object of home economics.
Generation X is prepared to be a service generation of FCS professionals/home economists, putting our heads down and getting the...