A swirly thing... Random Thoughts  

 

 

Lots of stuff makes me mad. I get angry at people's rudeness, at some people's stupidity, and at our (including my own) complacency as the government legislates more and more of our lives.

No, I'm not an anarchist, nor am I going to attempt to overthrow the government or join an extremist group or a militia... But sometimes, just sometimes I'd like to run away from the absurdity of it all...

 

Civility... Choice
(or why my family fears I am doomed!)

 

For example, there has recently been a lot of discussion about what's wrong with kids today, why they have no self-control; why they have no self-discipline. We blame TV, computer games, the film industry...

Have you ever heard a parent say, in an interview on TV or in private, that the kid is just plain rotten? Never! Have you ever heard a parent take responsibility for a rotten kid, speculating that perhaps his/her parenting skills were, uh... somewhat lacking? No. We blame everything and everyone except ourselves for just about everything.

My take on the whole thing? Well...

  • The government made it illegal to punish a child in any meaningful way. Smacking your kid is now considered child abuse.

    So... if the worst that will happen to you, no matter what you do, is a "time out", why not do whatever pleases you at the moment? I certainly would have, if I had been certain that there would be no consequences for my actions!

    I grew up in a different time. My mother back-handed me, right across the face, more than once (today I could have her put in jail for that - at the time, I would have absolutely loved having her arrested). I found that punishment so humiliating that I made sure that I never got caught doing stuff I shouldn't be doing.

    I was no angel, believe me. As a matter of fact, I was devious and manipulative and did plenty of things I knew I wasn't supposed to do. But I soon figured out that the approval I wanted from my mother would not be forthcoming if I got caught, though the very humiliating smack across the face was a certainty. So I stopped doing what I knew was wrong, usually before mom had any idea that I was doing it.

    In other words, I knew - absolutely, positively - that there would be very undesirable consequences for my actions. Rather than suffer those consequences, I -- more often than not -- abstained from the behaviors that would lead to them.

    I can assure you that sitting down with me and having a little chat about what I'd done wrong would not have taught me the same lesson that the threat of the back of my mother's hand did!

    My conclusion: if you make it illegal for parents to convey this information in the only way that kids seem to understand, many kids will simply never get the message. They'll do as they damn well please because they know there will be no consequences.

    Stop blaming the media. We all watch TV, go to movies, are exposed to the same garbage, day in and day out. So far, I haven't murdered anyone, or blown up any buildings...

    A few days after writing the above, I was greatly encouraged to hear on the news that one state -- I forget which one -- had reversed the law and once again made it legal for parents to spank their children. Hooray! Maybe there's hope for the next generation... at least one state's next generation.

  • It's all well and good to try to have a warm, fuzzy relationship with your kids, but that shouldn't be the primary concern when you're raising children. They really need discipline and boundaries and they're bound to get upset with you if you lay those down and consistently enforce them.

    Don't worry. They'll get over it. They'll probably even thank you for it someday.

    Several years ago, I worked with a woman who was having a horrible time with her son, a real little monster! She came to work in tears one day. When I asked what was wrong, she told me that her son had tried, not for the first time, to burn the house down. He had managed to do many hundreds of dollars worth of damage before the fire was extinguished.

    When she asked me what she should do, I suggested some good, old fashioned discipline: punish him in a way that would make him understand that he, and he alone, was responsible for his actions, and that there was a price to be paid when his actions were not socially acceptable.

    Her response: "But he won't like me if I'm mean to him!"

    I don't remember my exact reply, but it probably was sarcastic and reflected my disgust: Well, in that case, just let him burn the house down, if he wants to. At least you two can remain good buddies, even if you have to live out of your car. Your insurance probably won't cover a fire deliberately started by your little pal.

    She didn't quite get it about what a parent is supposed to do - in my opinion, raise a responsible, decent, civil human being and wait until they grow up to become best friends. It may take a few years for them to appreciate you fully, but they will sooner or later, if you find the right mix of love and discipline.

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Speaking of civility...

It seems to me that I read, sometime during the course of both my formal and informal education, that the only way for human beings to live together in a reasonably civilized society is to have laws - both written and unwritten - that govern our actions, and a tacit agreement that we will abide by those laws to preserve the society of which we are a part.

If our society seems to be ruder and cruder now, as so many TV commentators like to point out to us, it could be because so many of us behave as though the laws don't apply to us and manners are an old-fashioned and rather useless concept.

Try going the speed limit in a 25 MPH zone, or even a school zone. These days, that's asking for trouble, if you worry about road rage. I heard too many stories, when I lived in the wild west, about drivers shooting other drivers for going so slowly. "If you can't get out of my way, I'll just have to kill you." Never mind that the 'slow' driver was already going a bit over the speed limit!

Tail-gaters upset me too. I finally broke my sister of that bad habit. She used to get really upset when someone followed her too closely, which led to very colorful language and rude gestures.

Then she'd get behind someone who was going too slow to suit her, and used the same language and gestures as she tail-gated that unfortunate driver. Fortunately, my sister is an intelligent person: it only took a simple observation from me to change her tail-gating habit. I pointed out to her that she was doing the same thing to someone else that made her so angry when it was done to her.

That was sort of my understanding of the Golden Rule: don't do stuff to other people that you don't like having done to you. An old-fashioned concept, I admit... evidently no longer taught in the average home or school room...

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I have listened to the pro life candidates (and non-candidates) who would make it illegal for a woman to decide whether or not to bear a child.

The Constitution does not, that I'm aware of, guarantee the right to be born! According to The Declaration of Independence, the founding fathers stated: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

In my own thinking, this does not guarantee the right to be born, but only to not have your life taken from you on someone's whim if you do happen to make it into this worldly existence.

I have to re-read the Constitution to find the law guaranteeing that these self-evident truths are the law of the land. The Bill of Rights does, in Article II, state:

"A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."

It doesn't say "the rights of people in the military, law enforcement, etc. shall not be infringed." It clearly states that the right of the people... shall not be infringed. From my perspective, it's all a matter of perception and interpretation (and misinterpretation!).

The huge number of different Christian denominations exist because they couldn't agree on how the Bible should be interpreted (though the vast majority (myself included) have only read translations written by people with their own perceptions, interpretations, and points of view).

The error in outlawing the freedom of choice regarding abortion is that these well-meaning folks don't seem to care that if they make it illegal to terminate a pregnancy, women will revert to doing what they have done throughout history: they will abort themselves. My mother told me, when I was very young, about why my aunt had only one child; Aunt Beth used a wire coat hanger to terminate her own pregnancies.

Women will abort themselves or go to back-alley 'doctors' who will do the job for them, often at the cost of their own lives. It is unrealistic to believe that you can make a law stating that all women will be required to bear and raise any offspring they conceive, regardless of the circumstances of the conception and regardless of a woman's desire or ability to raise that child.

I would not, under any circumstances, care to bear the child of a rapist or that resulted from an incestuous relationship. I would not care to continue a pregnancy that threatened my life or health. I would resent, possibly even hate, that child forever.

Having been raised by a single parent who gave me good reason to believe that she deeply resented my presence on this earth, I understand all too well the life-long damage that inflicts. My mother did, I believe, try to abort me, but the doctor who performed the 'D&C' to remove the tumor that turned out to be me, that doctor missed his target and I'm here today. If he had been a little more thorough, I wouldn't be and - guess what? - certainly would not have known the difference!

Women will continue - as the extreme right and devout Christians accuse them of now - to murder 'children' before those 'children' draw their first breath! And, given human nature and the history of the world, that is a self-evident truth!


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