This prayer posted by Maria Shriver today reminds me of what my mother might have said.
She raised my sisters and me to stay above the fray, to keep our heads when all about us were losing theirs. When I came home and told my mother that a girl on the school bus wanted to fight. Mother said, "Girls fighting is low class, trashy, behavior." This from a farm wife who was unsophisticated, but had been raised with good morals and values.
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| LOIS COUNCIL |
I still feel that way and when I see high school girls fighting, it turns my stomach with disgust. I feel sorry for them that they had no one to teach them how to behave.
From what we see on television and in movies, our society in the United States has become "low class, trashy" in many ways. Civil, dignified behavior is absent from our leadership in Washington, and it has become popular with the people on the street, the children in school and in homes. We have become a "dog-eat-dog" culture where we say and do anything that behooves us, and we care not for those who get hurt.
It seems our culture is missing empathy. We only think of ourselves and we can't or won't put ourselves in the shoes of others, try to understand how they feel. Alan Alda who is an expert on communication says we don't listen. I think we all know that. We are thinking about what we want to say, and we don't hear others speak.
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| JUNE COUNCIL |
My sister, June, was the perfect southern, genteel woman who could hold her own with anyone who was disagreeable or who was being a problem. She never used a curse word, a vulgarity, or called anyone names. She had such command of vocabulary that the average person hardly realized that he had been shut up and admonished by the best until he walked away.
June was strong, calm, classy and dignified no matter what life threw at her. I strive to be like her, but I often fail.
We need more role models like June Council and my mother, Lois Council. Perhaps that would bring back classy, dignified deportment and rid us of the trashy, low class behavior prevalent in our world today.
I wonder if we will ever return to a dignified, civil society again, after what we are going through today. That's a quote worth remembering and sharing. Thank you for your post, and for being a role model. :-)
ReplyDeleteI agree and am glad your mother was a good role model.
ReplyDeleteThanks, DJan and Abbie. I was blessed with a mother who had come from a devoted and loving family. She passed on her values and taught her girls what she had learned from her own parents.
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