Thread: A Gentleman's Honor

Taking Heinlein to heart is what changed my thinking towards my Father as a young man. My Dad came to Canada in 1954 with a new wife, very little English, and about $20.00 between the two of them. They got off the train in Toronto and basically had to figure things out for themselves from that point on. Raised four kids, and worked his ass off until a chronic condition forced him into retirement in the mid-80s. We always had food on the table, a roof over our heads and anything else that was needed. Dad always used to say Mom did all the hard stuff, he just went off to work every day. But that was the key. He did what was needed . . . every . . . day. Until the day he died, my Father, by the example he set, showed me what it means to be a man, a husband, and a Father. I am grateful to have had enough time to show him that his lessons were well learned.

Very good! I want to be able to say I stuck by all my kids and provided what they needed above and beyond at times.
As they are now women, I am doing some still, but less and less.

There is a reward, of sorts. Get them on the path. Everyone needs to stay self sufficient.

Just in case, anyway.
You never know when you are going to have to rely on yourself?

I mean, GEEZE!

***Steel hears the conversation and quickly leaves The Parlor to go to the Former POW Picnic.***

Great post MikeT, nothing to new though...this quote comes to mind:

“The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.”

― Socrates (469–399 B.C.)

You beat me to it Phrank!

Two things for thought:

1) As the post above pointed out, people have been down on the next generation for as long as we have records of people's thoughts on society.

2) The kids will be alright IMHO. We always hear about the worst sections of any group of people. Young people are often dismissed as lazy, entitled, untrustworthy, and with no work ethic. But when I look at the younger kids of friends, colleagues, and family, most of them are really great. Super smart, really well-informed and engaged with the world, hard working, and determined to prove their many doubters wrong. And at work, we have a number of university students who work with us over the summer. Some of them are "bridged in" to full-time employment when warranted and when we're able, and every year we end up wishing we had more positions we could fill due to the ability and diligence of those students. Those students are (almost all) incredibly impressive young people.

None of this is to say I don't occasionally feel like witting on the porch, waving a stick, and railing at the young 'uns. But that has much more to do with the exceptional knuckleheads. I really do believe the majority will be just fine.

Good points.
Perhaps a case of "the squeaky wheel gets the grease"?

Maybe squeaky wheels are contagious too? I've lived in many places, some I would not consider living in again due to the noise of squeaky wheels.
In some places, one would have to wait half a day with their stick collecting dust at the side...
In other places squeaky wheels travel in packs and leave little stinky piles of digested food in places other than restrooms.

The compensating movement of a pendulum, by necessity, is not dead center... otherwise their would be no need for toilets.

Your perspective is much appreciated! My friends try to keep me optimistic.

First thoughts go a little like this. None of these ideas can be applied to the youth of today exclusively. There are people of all age groups that reflect this way of thinking and more importantly acting. Regardless of my personal opinion on any of this one point I would make is each generation needs to look in their collective mirrors for the reason why. I learned my moral code from my parents who felt it was important to reposition my compass whenever I moved a little off magnetic north. Their rules of engagement were different than today.

Deleted - too angry.

These are very good points. IMHO
It is all too easy to point at one group, whether a generation or another group, and claim to have discovered the source of any one problem. This seems especially true in that all circumstances are interdependent in some way.
One can look around and find individuals of all age groups acting bad.

Perhaps I should not try to simplify our worlds problems with a myopic eye, even though it does give that intoxicating feeling of validation and righteousness I so crave.

This is why I like to hold something sacred. A good purpose.
And part of that is trying to embody what I consider a Gentleman. But I don't always succeed.
The solution begins within each of us I assume.

I was a high school teacher for over 3 decades and seldom met a teenager who did not impress me. I’ll give one example: Jake looked like a biker with leathers and the wallet chain and long greasy hair. He worked everyday after school with children who had physical disabilities and never talked about that with anyone. When you sat and talked with him, he was the gentlest, most respectful young man you would ever hope to meet. I’m sure many folks would have judged Jake and his parents harshly based on his appearance and they would have been very wrong.

I wish I could remember the source, but a comment has stuck with me about parenting was the statement that you get revealed to you how effective you were as a parent when you observe your children raising their own. It’s too bad that kind of self-realization takes place so long after a lot of parental damage has been done and too late for parents to self-correct.