Life and Morality
Having grown up as a teen in the wild 60's, I've seen the lines between what's MORALLY right, and what's LEGALLY right blur. Sex before marriage was frowned upon when I grew up.........now it's accepted. There was one girl in my high school class of 1000 + kids who got pregnant and she was literally shunned and talked about. Girls who got pregnant before marriage were loose and whores. My best friend's sister got pregnant when we were both about 14 or 15. My mother said she was a whore and a slut. And since my mother was always right, I told my best friend that 's what my mother said so she must be a whore or a slut. My best friend stopped talking to me for many years. But it was different then. Taking drugs was a whole different thing then too. You were rebellious and wild if you smoked pot then. Everybody did it.........everybody got high. Not me. I was too moral. My other best friend's brother (whom I had had a crush on since we were 7) asked me to smoke pot with him one night on the porch............so I went home. We were taught that lying was wrong, that stealing was wrong, and Hell was real. We knew respect for our elders, called everyone Mrs. or Mr., never ever dreamed of talking back to our teachers. It was terrible if you got bad grades in school. It was different. And maybe because my generation was so restricted, that's the reason things are so loose now. Nowadays, if someone steals, it gets laughed about. The president lies! You can't trust anyone in Washington. Pregnant teenagers? They're proud of it! WHAT HAPPENED TO MORALS? Morals aren't old fashioned! They're guidelines to live by. We need them and we need them now more than ever. Parents need to become parents again, not their child's best friend. You don't just hand your child whatever they want......make them earn it! And just because they want something doesn't mean they have to have it. You have to provide discipline with your children. It's so lacking these days. Why? Because if you spank your child.......it's child abuse! You could lose your child! Did I get spanked or even a good beating when I was a kid? Darn right I did. And it kept me in line. I didn't want another one. All a kid these days has to do is to tell a teacher that daddy hit him, or mommy touched me and wham! The parents are in trouble and the kid is in a foster home. It's a mixed up crazy world now. I don't get it. I don't understand parents who brag about their teenager who is pregnant and let her do whatever she wants to without regard to the baby she created. And then let it happen all over again.
Was I tough on my kids? Some. One more than the other, but only because the second one didn't want what the first one got. Did the first one deserve it? Not always. Was I a perfect mother? Absolutely not. I made tons of mistakes, cried myself to sleep many nights about decisions I made, worried that they would hate me for it (sometimes I'm sure they did), and cried many many times worrying that they just wouldn't get it and screw up their lives. But fortunately, my moralistic teachings might have actually gotten through to them because they grew up okay! Guess morals aren't such a bad thing after all. We just need more of them in our lives.
Was I tough on my kids? Some. One more than the other, but only because the second one didn't want what the first one got. Did the first one deserve it? Not always. Was I a perfect mother? Absolutely not. I made tons of mistakes, cried myself to sleep many nights about decisions I made, worried that they would hate me for it (sometimes I'm sure they did), and cried many many times worrying that they just wouldn't get it and screw up their lives. But fortunately, my moralistic teachings might have actually gotten through to them because they grew up okay! Guess morals aren't such a bad thing after all. We just need more of them in our lives.