If you live long enough, there’s a chance you get to see everything. If not everything, then a lot. Sometimes history seems to repeat itself, or, in the words of Mark Twain, if it doesn’t exactly repeat, it certainly does rhyme.
So it goes with society’s idea of how to raise children. I was raised by very strict parents and hardly-doting grandparents. Of course, there’s always a couple of indulgent aunts and uncles, but everybody pretty much walked the walk as far as manners, morals, and integrity were concerned. And they made no bones about the fact that I was expected to follow suit.
Somewhere during my childhood and adolescence, leading experts (?) began to advocate that children should be allowed to ‘express themselves’ and ‘explore without boundaries’. My father was having none of it. My mother, the more lenient one, scoffed at the notion.
Other parents and children could do as they pleased in their own homes. Child psychologists and family therapists could pontificate and hypothesize till the cows came home. Education and etiquette were enforced and encouraged in a very undemocratic but reasonable environment.
It wasn’t that I couldn’t express my opinion or have a difference of opinion. I simply saw how well things had worked with previous generations. We had a comfortable life, my parents were respected in the community, and I had a wealth of options and opportunities.
“If something’s not broken, don’t fix it.” An old saying that resonated at a young age. making me very circumspect when contemplating the idea of rocking the proverbial boat. Exactly what might I be ‘rebelling against’?
NeverthelessI was hardly a conformist, opting to pursue the very unreliable profession of writing when I could have comfortably settled into some sort of career in something, you know, more respectable, like real estate or banking.
Yet as hard as my parents were on me as a young lad, they were equally patient with me as my professional life sputtered and stalled, lurched and leaned, and finally took some shape over the long term.
There was, I realize now, a lot of room to roam within the very high, thick walls of tradition. But make no mistake: a definitive and rock-hard demarcation existed in the world of personal behavior and professional conduct. Based on choices big and small, daily and infrequent, in the world where I grew up, a person was either honorable or dishonorable.
The issue was very black and white. If you had to make a tough choice, you made a tough choice. You paid the price for it, good or bad, and lived with the consequences or rewards without explanation, rationalization, or complaint.
‘Difficult circumstances’ played no part. ‘Potential profit’ was irrelevant. ‘Peer pressure’ was a foreign concept. Your ‘feelings’ didn’t make one ounce of difference. You stood on principle or you gave in.
One dishonorable choice could ruin a reputation. Permanently.
And while I am very reluctant to pass judgment on others–who really knows all the facts?–I am not very tolerant when I witness blatantly dishonorable behavior. I am even less patient when I hear excuses for that behavior.
My father rarely explained his behavior. His choices, motivations, priorities, and guiding principles were straightforward and self-evident. In fact, he actually told me once to ignore everything he said and just watch what he did. It was a very enlightening–and irritating–suggestion.
I suppose I expect the same transparency from others. I know I expect it from myself, even if I fall short on occasion.
We live in a subtle, complex, and often contradictory world. We are often required to navigate the waters, as they say, and do things that we don’t always agree with. Such is the nature of life, but within this quagmire we can find, if we search and feel for it, the foundation of moral behavior: the very simple ‘right and wrong’ we were taught as children.
Honor is a word used more often than it should be. It denotes a constant position, relentless in its demands on us, unforgiving in its price, but worth all the money in the world in its faithful execution.
They say that in life we should choose our battles. Perhaps this is true. It is certain, however, that we must go forward and fight them honorably, even if we risk defeat in doing so.
- BGT