Times Have Changed...

Ever felt like a person “out-of-time” or “out-of-place”?  A person who doesn’t feel like other people and society as a whole?  Money is not the “end-all” and “be-all” but it’s nice to have.  “Respect is earned not bestowed.” “Make our children learn without always trying to make it “easy””.  "Integrity, honor, truth and trust are the only things we can take with us when we die and the only things people will remember."  They now seem to be words from another time, another place.  These attributes are built, not given, and when we fail to instill them in our children, we betray them.  We betray the “trust” they have in us.  We betray the “trust” society has placed in us as parents.  We used to seek these things, to make them a part of our own personality but somewhere along the way we have forgotten to pass that on.  Our parents…my parents…taught that without those things, we are nothing.  Integrity, honor, truth and trust have lost their place in today’s society and therefore have lost their places in us.  When we have lost those things in us, our children never get it.  Society’s tomorrow will never have it and we will fail as a nation.

Now, I am not going to say that my parents did everything right, they didn’t.  My parents were dysfunctional, one diagnosed, one undiagnosed and therefore I grew up in a dysfunctional family for the most part.  But both of my parents knew their responsibility as parents.  My father always worked, had a job, and hardly ever missed a day at work except that occasional, sometimes frequent Monday after. My mother liked to start things, create drama and be the center of attention.  I and my brothers didn’t always have the nicest clothes, didn’t always have lunch money. We carried our lunch in brown paper bags…peanut butter sandwich, a couple of cookies, and a piece of fruit.  We could always count on that!!  In my twelve years of elementary education however, I barely missed a day of school.  What my parents did know was the value of an education and the value of a man’s word.  Everything else in this life could be taken away but not your education and not your word, your sense of integrity, honor, truth and trust.  That was the standard for the families I knew and grew up with.  That is what our children have lost today.

Now, I use the word “trust” primarily because integrity, honor and truth have no meaning without trust.  The dictionary defines “trust” as a “reliance on the integrity, strength, ability, surety, etc., of a person or thing; confidence.”  It is the principal on which integrity, honor and truth are based for without trust there is no integrity, no honor, and no truth.  When a “trust” is betrayed you find no honor, no integrity and no truth in the person or thing that betrayed it. The law has betrayed our trust.  Politicians have betrayed our trust.  Educational institutions have betrayed our trust.  “Significant others” have betrayed our trust and we, if we are parents, have betrayed the trust of our children.  And we have done it all in the name of money, power, prestige and self-indulgence.  The new standard!

Today, we have become a society of “one”, of “self”…ourselves!  We have started measuring integrity, honor, truth and trust based on our own standards, individual standards and not standards that have been shown and proven over time.  The honor and integrity that allowed this country to be what it is…or was.  Our children have become pawns that we have been willing to sacrifice in the name of prestige, status and the all mighty dollar.  These have been the new standards we have set and these have been the new definitions we have based our lives on.  These have also been the standards we have set for our children and then we wonder why we have things like gangs, over crowded prisons, failing educational institutions, corrupt and dysfunctional legal and law enforcement systems.  These children have no sense of honor, integrity, truth or trust.  I truly takes a village to raise a child and these systems have betrayed our children.  We as parents have betrayed our children.

We used to hold people accountable. We were held accountable or I should say...I was held accountable for my grades, my chores, my language, and most of all, I was held accountable for my failures of respect, a form of trust.  Respect for my parents, my elders, my  teachers and the law.  Now days, children openly disrespect without consequence.  They curse teachers, neighbors, policemen and even parents.  I would have never even considered talking to my parents or elders disrespectfully!  Even to this day, I refer to my elders by title and last name...Mrs. Glenn, Mrs. Beard, Mr. Wright...and I am an adult!  I might think, but never say a curse word to an elder, a teacher, or policeman.  I learned respect, and respect was trustworthy.  No wonder youth today have no respect for life, for the property and possessions of others. They were never taught it, or taught how to get it, only told that they had to have it!  Our children are not being held accountable.  They are not being held responsible, for anything!  Children don't have chores, they have cell phones and Wiis.  Children don't have paper routes, cut lawns or shovel snow in the winter to earn money for things, they have credit cards.  They have parents who "don't want them to go through the same things I went through when I was growing up" meaning not being able to get the things I wanted just by asking.

  

People might say that “Times have changed.  They are not like when you grew up.”  And those people are right, times have changed.  More technology, more advances in medicine and science.  But in all those changes, did we have to change what made the United States the greatest nation on earth?  Did we have to sell those qualities that set us apart?  Of course, we had to change things like civil rights, women’s rights and the like but those changes were necessary and needed to bring us up to the standards of the principals the founding fathers laid out.  The standards set for a country, a nation.  Integrity, honor, truth and trust were standards for the nation but they were also standards for individuals in that nation and that’s the part we’ve lost and therefore, the nation can not survive.  I have often asked parents what they felt was their most important job as a parent.  I have received many different responses ranging from "to love them" to "making sure they have a place to stay".  I don't disagree with any of the responses I receive from these parents but offer them an alternate response.  The most important job of any parent is to "TEACH".  What we teach will dictate the type of child we transform into an adult.