Sitting on the sidelines at family gatherings can be very interesting. You must try it sometime.
There you are, minding your own business, trying to do a head count of the children running around you and to figure out who belongs to whom.
Then suddenly a voice rings out. The speaker is stressed. “You are not going anywhere dressed like that!”
Subject of this outburst is a scantily dressed “just-teener” who is wearing inappropriate clothes to a “proper” event.
I chuckle when I realize that the irate parent is livid over an outfit she/he paid for in the first place.
I remember my mother always chose what we were to wear for whatever occasion. Hems and necklines were always assiduously checked. Ah, but that was so long ago!
Like most grandparents, I cringe at the changes that time seems to have inflicted on the rearing of our young. When did it start? And who started it?
I think the change did not happen overnight. I believe it crept in when we were trying so hard to be casual in the face of blatant rudeness or disrespect. It took hold when we looked the other way, and when we chickened out of the unpleasant task of “knocking some sense” into our young people, just to keep the peace!
It grew roots when we justified bad behavior by calling it “just a phase.”
Look what has happened to fashion. When did it become okay to wear baseball caps (or hats) inside the house? At the dinner table, too? Yesterday’s sando, which is really underwear, is now called a muscle shirt. In my book, neither is acceptable in the house, much less at the table. I don’t care what they call it.
I’m on a roll. So here’s more.
Unshaven faces are sloppy. Pants with holes and scruffy, threadbare cuffs are untidy and never attractive. Rings or studs pierced on the tongue or any other part of the body look frightening and must be excruciatingly painful.
By the way, shouldn’t airlines have a dress code? Imagine sitting on a 10- or 14-hour trans-Pacific flight beside a man in an undershirt and flip-flops?
Time was when a fresh mouth got a smack from the back of someone’s hand. Or at the least, it provoked a lengthy and impassioned reprimand. Now they call it self-expression, an opportunity for the child to verbalize his/her inner thoughts and emotions.
Burp nonstop
Even body functions have become competitive sports among the young. I heard a blonde neighbor tell my little niece that her brother could burp nonstop for 10 minutes after drinking only one glass of water. She was actually in awe, as if the boy had just accomplished a feat of keeping 10 balls up in the air without dropping one.
I heard my little girl say “dithguthting” (yes, she lisped), and I breathed a sigh of relief.
What are we teaching our children? Or, worse, what are we not teaching them?
Have parents relinquished this all-important role and if so, to whom? Have they abdicated their positions of authority in response to the “let us be friends” way of thinking?
My thought is that throughout their lives, your children will have numerous friends, but only one mother and one father.
We are accused of being over-protective.
Is a parent out of bounds when she requires her child to walk under an umbrella in the rain? Or when she keeps an umbrella handy on a sunny day? Does objecting to sleepovers make you an unreasonable parent? Are we even allowed to ask whose house it is, or who else sleeps in it?
When the children start dating, when they fall in love, isn’t it normal to feel some trepidation, some fluttering of fear within our souls?
There’s a cruel world out there waiting to engulf the young in a flood of skewed values. Before darkness falls, we want to have our lamps lit and ready.
A song by Barbra Streisand says it so well. Here are a few lines from “If I Could:”
“If I could I’d protect you from the sadness in your eyes. Give you courage in a world of compromise. Yes I would.
“If I could, I would try to shield your innocence from time. But the part of life I gave you isn’t mine. I watched you grow so I could let you go.
“If I could, I would teach you all the things that I have learned; I would help you cross the bridges I have burned.
“I would help you make it through the hungry years. But I know I can never cry your tears, but I would, if I could.
“I would change the world I brought you to; but there isn’t very much that I can do, but I would if I could.”
Are we protective of our young? You bet we are.
Thanksgiving Day is on Nov. 24. In the US, where it started with the Pilgrims on Plymouth Rock in the 1600s, it is one of the biggest holidays of the year.
In our home, wherever we may be, we still celebrate with turkey and all the trimmings. For us, it ushers in the Christmas season. Our tree is up and the lights shine brightly. We gather family and agree that we are blessed indeed.
Here is our simple prayer:
Dear God, we want to take a minute of your time, not to ask anything from you, but just to say thank you for all we have.
Amen.
