My father was raised by one of the most hard-nosed men still alive. At the height of his career, my grandfather was the second-highest ranking naval intelligence officer in the United States of America. Let's just say that one doesn't rise to that position by being Mr. Lackadaisical.
When my dad was young, he heard about some of the teens his age "borrowing" their parent's car in the middle of the night, thinking it would be fun to go joyriding. And it was for them. So it was easy to brag to their peers at school how they got away with swiping the car and dragging main without permission. Seeing other having fun getting away with these kinds of shenanigans but also aware of the strict nature of the man that he called "father," Dad asked Grandpa what the consequences would be if he took the car out for a spin in the middle of the night.
"Really?"
Grandpa leaned in close, raised his hand, and snapped his fingers. "That fast."
Now, part of the reason that Grandpa got as far as he did in life was because of the support of a strong woman at his side. Like Grandpa, Grandma wasn't much for putting up with any monkeyshines either. At her funeral a few years ago, my dad said something while delivering the eulogy that really stuck with me. He said "My mother didn't defend her children's behavior; she defended what was right. Therefore, her children had better be doing what is right."
Between Grandma and Grandpa's example, I think my dad learned this lesson pretty well. I lived under what most these days would consider to be some pretty strict, even harsh, rules while living in my parent's household. All of that changed when I was 18. I can still remember when Dad sat me down and took the leash off. He said something along the following lines: "Son, you are 18 now. Mom and I have spent that many years trying to teach you what is right, trying to make you into a man. And we've had a lot of rules for you to follow. I will be the first to admit that we have been very strict with you. But that ends now. The leash is off. Welcome to being an adult."
He then leaned in close and said "So if you go out, screw up your life and wind up in jail, I'll be more than happy to come and visit you."
It was what he didn't say there that was important. He didn't have to say that he wouldn't bail me out. I already knew that. If I did something to end up in jail, it was my fault and there would be no one to bail me out because of something I did.
My parents raised me in such a way that I knew what was right, and if I suffered the consequences of my poor choices, I had no one to blame except myself. Because I knew better. I am responsible for accepting the consequences of my own decisions. My parents could protect me from a lot of things in this world; but they cannot protect me from myself. I guess my parent's philosophy may be a little different from the world's current train of thought. Their mindset was (and still is) that it wasn't their job to protect us kids from the world; it was their job to teach us to protect ourselves. They realized that someday mommy and daddy wouldn't be there to make choices for me. So they prepared me for that by expecting me to live according to what I knew to be right before they took the leash off. That does not mean my folks were uncaring, or threw us out into the world unprepared. On the contrary. In teaching us right from wrong, my parents gave us the best possible preparation to function out in the "real world." That's not to say I didn't make a few good-sized mistakes here and there, but still managed to make it to this point in life without any jail time.
Now, switching gears just a little, I kind of like the Transformers movie. Giant alien robots coming to earth creating an epic struggle for mankind is a pretty cool plot. There is, however, something that seriously bugs me about that film. For those not familiar with the movie, I'll give you a quick synopsis.
The main character, Sam, is in possession of an artifact, something belonging to his great-grandfather, detailing the location of a powerful tool used by an alien robots race. These robots (both the good ones and the bad ones) find out that the artifact and the tool are on earth and come to find both. The good robots befriend Sam, who joins up in the fight to save humanity against the bad robots that want to destroy the earth with the powerful alien tool. An ultra-super-secret US government agency tasked with monitoring the alien situation gets involved in the fiasco as well. The movie ends after an epic battle stretching from the Hoover Dam to L.A., with the good guys saving humanity. As a side issue, a gorgeous girl from Sam's high school who wouldn't give him the time of the day finally notices him when she finds out that he is involved in cool alien robots.
At one part where Sam and the girl get caught with the robots by the secret agent government dude that nobody is supposed to like, said agent mentions that the girl has a juvenile record. She admits to Sam that the cars that she used to help her dad fix weren't exactly their own cars, if you catch her drift. If you don't, that means that her dad stole the cars. And you can tell that Sam is a little shocked at this revelation. Here in his mind was the perfect girl, and whoops; she had a record. (It does cause one to wonder how some secret government agent responsible for alien robot management for the most powerful country on earth knows off the top of his head that the sort-of girlfriend of a teenage boy they caught with the robots has a juvie record, but that is beside the point.)
A little bit later she calls Sam out, presumably for judging her (though he didn't even mention anything about the incident) while he lives a "perfect little life." With the lights bursting behind her, the camera down low pointing up at her, the background music/sounds just right, everything cinematographically necessary to make her look every bit the brave and rugged heroine, she says "Sam...I have a record because I wouldn't turn my dad in."
Cut. Print. Wrap. It's perfect.
And it bugs the living daylights out of me. The director turned her character into a hero for being willing to set aside such things as morals and defend her father's behavior, while simultaneously turning Sam into a jerk-face meanie for having the audacity to have the thought cross his mind that it is wrong to steal cars. By golly, if he is willing to think it is wrong to steal cars, he probably tortured kittens as a child!! If my mom hadn't taught me otherwise, I would probably be cussing him up one side and down the other for having the audacity to have morals!! And boy she sure showed him by then asking him what he had ever had to sacrifice in his "perfect little life." Gosh, it is a good thing she put him in his place.
Oh what a tangled web we weave. It is now good and glamorous and heroic and sacrificial and selfless and probably other virtuous-sounding words to defend someone else's behavior, whether or not said behavior is wrong. I mean, don't get me wrong; I was impressed she was willing to do that. Presumably because of love...? And only a judgmental, discriminatory, racist, sexist, self-righteous zealot and bigot who tortured kittens as a child who would dare even question covering up for someone else's misdeeds.
Hollywood remains unmatched in their ability to manipulate the masses into extolling behavior that is deplorable. Though, in all fairness, today's mainstream media seems to have picked up a few pointers.
I guess what I'm trying to say is when did it become okay to defend someone else's wrongful behavior? It would seem that it is now not only appropriate, but wildly acceptable in our culture to hold everyone but the individual (more often called the victim nowadays) accountable for the individual's actions. It seems to be widely accepable to put what is right in the backseat in order to excuse an individual's behavior.
When did it become okay for the masses to remove responsibility from the individual? How did we get to the point in society where one standing up for what they believe to be right is portrayed as a self-righteous bigot? That is not to say that bigotry and the self-righteousness don't exist; I'd be lying if I said it didn't. However, we tear down virtue to uphold atrocities if the "victim's" political, sexual, racial, personal or any other such characteristics and creeds are aligned with our own. I think this point is well illustrated by the following image:
I am legitimately concerned that in today's day and age, this mentality extends far beyond the classroom.
When you teach someone that they are above what is right, that the rules don't apply to them, that someone else will bail them out of any sticky situation they get themselves in, you are not helping them. You are lying to them.
Parents, loving your children involves much more than telling them yes every time they make a request. Or demand. Or throw a temper tantrum. It also means not defending their behavior when they do something wrong. When a parent excuses their child's wrongful behavior because they "love" their child, the parents are not only fooling themselves, but severely damaging their child. Truly loving your children requires, at times, that you say no. Truly loving your children requires that they be punished for doing wrong. They may look at you as the big, bad, meanie parent in the moment. Have the courage to stand up for what is right rather than what is easy, and shallowly presents itself as "love."
Let me be absolutely clear; I'm not advocating child abuse here. That is, and always will be, wrong. But letting your child off scot-free can be just as damaging in the long run. If you don't teach them, the world will. And getting a spanking or a time-out is much more gentle than watching them end up behind bars. Or suffering the consequences of choices that you can't get them out of. Take the recent "affluenza" case that popped up when a parent took it too far in trying to remove the consequences from the teen responsible.
I recently heard a story for the first time involving my brother, one of his "friends," and my father. Though I wasn't present for the event, I think it appropriately demonstrates what I am trying to say here. In a nutshell, Dad told Brother that he was not allowed to go to a certain party. Brother wasn't too happy, and neither was Friend. So, Friend took it upon himself to go up to Dad and pompously and presumptuously tell Dad off for saying no, insinuating that Dad was abusing his authority as a father figure in saying no.
As I listened to Brother and Dad recall the event from years previous, I was so proud of my brother when he said that he now not only realized why Dad had told him no, but appreciated that Dad cared enough to say no. He, and I, now realize that our parents loved us enough to say no when necessary.
There are those that will say that is a harsh viewpoint. But, as a wise man once told me, "It is not my job to protect my children from the world. It is my job to teach them to protect themselves." If you stand for what is right, your children will stand for what is right. If you stand for your child, your child will do whatever they want, regardless of what is right.
Our culture is currently engaged in the greatest cultural experiment of putting individuals above principles ever known to mankind. I personally believe it starts in the home. And we are suffering for it. While many decrying injustice in this day and age look to government for solutions to remedy the symptoms of such outrages, the very people viewing themselves as social heroes are indeed the very catalysts fueling and escalating these occurrences. Every time they make excuses for such an individual, hundreds of young, impressionable children receive the message that it is possible for them too to live above the rules. They learn that someone will step in and make excuses for them if they do something reprehensible. The snake-oil solutions provided by these perceived social warriors will never work because they are more interested in defending the behavior of those who wind up in trouble as the consequences of their own poor choices than they are in defending what is right. Is it any wonder that nearly 1 in 3 young people will be arrested by the age of 23?
Why then was Martin Luther King Jr. so effective? Because he was interested in what was right. And he didn't sink down to the level of wrongdoers in order to "right" that wrong. It was wrong to segregate the African-American population from society. It is wrong to judge or treat a person differently based on their skin color. He recognized that was wrong, and he did something about it. And something tells me that he understood the old adage "two wrongs don't make a right." He also realized it also wasn't right to go around destroying property and beating people when something you don't like occurs. And that is the difference between him and today's rabble-rousers. He didn't make excuses for the behavior of others. He didn't care about how the media portrayed him. He wasn't interested in money. He wasn't caught up in trying to be perceived as politically correct, and cared not for finding every possible offense imaginable and then whining, wailing, and gnashing his teeth at the world, demanding the situation be remedied. He was more interested in what was right than in possibly damaging someone's fragile mentality or frail ego.
Our nation is not suffering from intolerance; it is suffering because of a collective willingness to excessively tolerate that which is wrong. Our culture is suffering because, in general, we refuse to stand up and say something is good or bad. Or rather, it is our willingness to elevate people and their behaviors above the rules that is causing our culture to crumble in our midst. Political correctness has pushed truth right out of a second story window and spat on it to boot. We grab picket signs (physical or digital) and call the perpetrator (a.k.a someone who stands up and calls it what it is, and no, that was NOT a Donald Trump reference) horrible names way before we would even dare to question if the alleged victim shouldn't have been doing what they were doing. In a day and age when political correctness dictates we never tell someone that what they are doing is wrong (unless of course they don't agree with us), it is more important than ever to put what is right ahead of what is politically correct.
I believe that, like during the 60's and 70's culture of drugs and sex, our culture is in a serious dilemma. This time, the danger is much more subtle. Rather than a chemical or blatant moral threat, this new attitude of perceived morality, of defending people's behaviors no matter the reason will indeed lead America to a brave, new future.
