When I was growing up in the
South, I called grownups sir and ma’am. I called the parents of my friends Mr.
or Mrs. So-and-so. I also got my mouth washed out with soap for saying
“shut-up.”
On matters of manners, my
mother ran a tight ship. We had to say “please” and “thank you.” Writing
thank-you notes was the 11th commandment, or maybe the 6th,
right after “Honour thy father and mother.” We children were more often seen
than heard.
Of course, that was in the
bucolic 1950s. Then, my family left the South and went West just in time for
the 1960s and to be near the epicenter of flower children, free speech, and the
counterculture.
I wore tie-dye and bell
bottom jeans and protested Vietnam, but I still said “please” and “thank you.”
Yet, after watching a
candidate for the highest office in the land on the stage of Hofstra University
interrupting, sputtering, and spewing “Not!” and “Wrong!” before a national,
even global, audience, I have to ask where in the world has civility gone? Did my generation of protestors, hippies, and
flower children flouting authority start us down the slope to where we are
today?
As Professor Walter E. Williams
of George Mason University writes, “Starting in the 1960s, the values
that made for civility came under attack.” Dr. Williams talks about
banning corporal punishment half a century ago as being a forerunner for
today’s lack of civility.
I was smacked with a ruler by
my 2nd grade teacher for not putting my pencil down and sent to the
office for chewing gum in 7th grade. Yes, I was quite the wild
child.
Not!
The point is there were
consequences for bad behavior – whether it was a soapy mouth or a ruler swatting or
being sent to the office. So, how did someone of my generation – just a few
years older – grow up to be so unruly, surly, and rude?
Enter “Donald Trump” and “grade
school” on Google and you’re quickly led to descriptions of an incorrigible
child at Kew-Forest School in Queens, NY.
If only Donald Trump had had my parents or my teachers.
I suspect class and privilege
played a big part in young Donny getting a pass from those teachers and
administrators. The little rich child got away with big talk, swagger, and bullying.
But, he was abruptly sent to
military boarding school when he was 13, TheWashington Post reports.
To me, it looks like he
needed a much stronger institution than the New York Military Academy where instead
of military order the emphasis was on fighting, hazing, and male dominance.
He learned those lessons
well.
Here’s what’s worrying and it
takes me back to the ‘60s again to the Graham Nash song “Teach Your Children
Well.”
Election 2016 is not teaching
our children well. With the Republican candidate we are telling our children that
cruelty, crudity, and lying is okay. We are saying it’s acceptable to be racist,
intolerant, and bigoted and still be a candidate to be the leader of the free
world. We are tacitly admitting that being bellicose and belligerent is
admirable.
Not!
Those are bad lessons. They
are the direct opposite of the misogynist candidate’s favorite adjective. Those
lessons are terrible, not terrific.
As developmental psychologist
Dr. Roberta Michnick told Vanity Fair, “Our children are being exposed to
a role model that is horrendous… And he’s already had an impact. There are
examples in which he has disinhibited people, and children, from saying
negative and racist things about others.”
With this fellow – he’s no
gentlemen – on the national stage consuming so much airtime and so much of our finite
genteel oxygen I’m worried about civility, about kindness, and about empathy.
That’s worries me a lot. But, the future of our country worries me
even more.
This bully must be stopped.
And it is up to us. All of
us. That’s my message on National Voter Registration Day.
