Bitter heart: Some sons and daughters of European friends believe that I lived in a simpler, if not golden, age. Less social and political fragmentation since a global war had just been fought and the continent was busy rebuilding. No useful-but-addictive Internet. No AI. Far less daily pressure on parents and children alike, and as a result, a smaller chance of insecurity brought on by constant stress and anxiety. Influenced by 1950s Hollywood movies and family-oriented sitcoms, they imagined American households of that period as wholesome and uncomplicated. In some respects, I admit that such nostalgia isn’t altogether wrong. But what this fails to account for — and I speak from experience — were twice-weekly fallout shelter drills when my entire Washington, D.C., classroom was herded into the cold, dank basement under a flickering light bulb suspended by a thread. The year was 1964. It also fails to consider the extent to which my parents worried regularly about the prospect of nuclear war. At cocktail parties, men debated overkill. They were essentially counting how many tens of millions of Americans or Russians would die in a first-strike missile attack. When I tried to seek refuge in Hergé’s Tintin series, I was told I needed to behave more like an adult since my mortal future was at stake. So instead I played with my stuffed animals. All of this is to say, beware the teasing grapes of idealized nostalgia. They can be as bitter as a bitter heart.