We’ve come a long way; is our gratitude keeping pace?

“Thank God, it's the weekend.”

“Thank goodness no one was hurt in that accident.”

“Thank you, doctor, for saving my life.”

Gratitude has many forms and varying degrees of sincerity. It can be expressed with a simple “thank you.” Other times we struggle to find the right sentiment.

It's a feeling always in flux, a state of being that evolves over time.

“I was born in 1951, and I had no idea what the Depression was all about, but my parents knew very much,” said Nick Longworth, 59, pastoral care counselor at St. Luke's Hospital in Cedar Rapids. “My dad would say, ‘One day you may thank God you have this to eat.' At that time I couldn't appreciate what it was like not to have enough to eat, but they did.”

The decades that followed the Great Depression brought World War II, the civil rights movement, the Vietnam War, “free love” and unprecedented increases in standard of living and opportunities for the young.

Today's generation has forgotten, some say, what past generations have paid for. Entitlement has replaced gratitude; “I am owed this” has replaced “thank you.”

Breaking that attitude begins at home.

“I think the key is that you teach gratitude through modeling,” said Longworth. “Help to identify that there are things that come to us that are not purely because of our merit or things that come at the largesse of others. ... It helps them discover that they can only have certain things if they're willing to work for them.”

Work ethic is only part of what's necessary, said Melody Graham, psychology professor and dean of graduate studies at Mount Mercy University in Cedar Rapids.

“Anything we can do to show (youths) the inequities in life will make them thankful for the things they do have,” said Graham, 49.

That's not to encourage an “I'm better than you” attitude. Instead, she said, teach them to appreciate things people have done for them and instill in them the value of helping others.

“Help them find someone who has done something meaningful for them and write that person a thank-you note,” Graham said. “It could be that teacher who had a great impact or a neighbor.”

It's not entitlement, it's ambition, said Erick Skogman of his generation.

Skogman, 30, of Cedar Rapids, points to his friends as an example. Several have worked for four or five companies already since graduating from college. They've changed jobs more than previous generations would have even considered.

“They don't go into one company and stay until they retire and get the gold watch,” he said. “... It's more competitive, and so good employees are going to want what they deserve or will go where they will get it.”

He said expectations have changed.

“The philosophies are totally different,” he said. “The expectations for work and family are totally different from what they were for other generations.”

He admits his generation may be less patient, but “that ambition for something better is just human nature.”

Still, if gratitude were measured in terms of loyalty, he said, young professionals and even the companies that employ them likely don't show enough.

“The loyalty employees have and, really, that companies have for their employees is a lot different from in the past,” he said.

Jim Bonewald and his wife, Lori Wunder, know what it means to be thankful. After a two-year process, the Presbyterian pastors will soon be bringing home their adopted son from Ethiopia.

“ ... We want to have a family, and we realize we're blessed with the resources and the ability to care for a child, and this is one way we could do it,” said Bonewald, 41, of Mount Vernon.

The trip to Ethiopia to meet their 16-month-old son also made the couple realize something else.

“For us, having gone to Ethiopia, a country that is one of the most impoverished in the world, we came away from that thinking about ways we can be grateful for what we have by doing things that will help improve other peoples' lives,” Bonewald said.

“I think sometimes we just say, ‘Thank you,' and that's it. It never leads to anything more,” he said.

Action, doing something to help even out the inequities - that helps children and adults alike appreciate what they have and begin to understand gratitude, Longworth said.

“It's OK to say, ‘I'm glad that I and the people I love have not experienced that,' ” he said. “It's not saying, ‘Better you than me,' but recognizing the direness of another person's circumstance.”