Wednesday, November 27, 2019

Something to cry about

 The first lady came to Baltimore to speak at a youth summit. The summit was to address the opioid epidemic. This summit was attended by middle and high school aged children. She was soundly booed! She gave her speech anyway and afterward even defended the students right to boo her. A lady of class and grace regardless of your feelings about her husband.
 What bothers me about this is that those children, and yes they are children, felt it appropriate to boo the first lady of the United States. I can't help but think, is this what we are teaching the children of today? A total lack of respect for first, an adult, secondly, an invited speaker, and third the First Lady of the United States of America! What the heck? How is that alright? What message is being sent to the children, what lesson learned? And I have to add I don't care who it is, what political party they are affiliated with, who their spouse is, or any of that. The first lady should be afforded the highest respect. What further bothers me is the main stream news reporting on this. No admonishment of the children's behavior at all. No, the news reports this event as though it was a good thing! I won't apologize for my feelings. I am disgusted!
 I know, I'm a boomer. I get called that almost on a daily basis these days. I guess it is supposed to be an insult or something. Just another way of calling me an old man. Yeah, I get it. Things is, I am a boomer, I am old, and I'm not ashamed of that at all. Those using that term are the millennials. I understand that many of them are having a hard time understanding reality, I don't have that problem.  So for that reason calling me a boomer, a factual description, doesn't mean much to me. All it really means is, if it weren't for the boomers there would be no millennials. Now there are some of these millennials that are also confused about gender and it would seem, reproduction. I'm not so certain they will reproduce anything! If they aren't killing their offspring as a " choice " they are attempting to change their gender or being neutral. Neutral won't get you anywhere. But whatever, that was the response I received when mentioning this lack of respect for the first lady. " Shut up, boomer. " Yeah, a real meaningful dialogue.
 I'm not going to say, in my day. My day ain't over yet! Yeah, I'm older now, get older every day and have been doing so every day for 67 years. I anticipate that will continue, until it doesn't. That's a reality. I will say I was taught how to behave in a civilized society. Being disrespectful to your elders wasn't cheered on the evening news! It's my belief teaching children to speak up is a good thing. Certainly they should make their feelings known. Things is, there is a time and place for that. Listening to a speaker isn't the time or place. This individual was invited to speak, the bare minimum is to sit in silence. That is what I was taught and that is what I believe. It's a courtesy, if not a show of respect. Certainly teaching our children to be courteous can't be a hindrance to their development.
 Well, I just saw that and couldn't help but comment. As I said I don't care who it is, they deserve some courtesy and respect. This was a speaker, not an entertainment event. You can boo an entertainer, it's an occupational hazard, although I personally wouldn't do that. I will just not go to there show, or buy whatever it is they are selling. I don't feel a need to insult them. My silence, my lack of reaction, should be all the clue they need. The action of those students, middle school and high school, ages 12 to 18, speaks volumes to me. Yes you are always going to have a few that " act out. " That's what they called it way back in the dark ages when I was in middle school. Those children were confronted on that behavior, not encouraged. But when you have the majority " acting out " drowning out the few that politely applauded the speaker, that does reflect upon our society. What is it showing? Well, this boomer would have gone " boom " if it was one of my kids I can tell you that much. Damn disrespectful brats! That's my feeling anyway, I hope that I made it clear. Someone needs to provide some clarity, you can't rely on the evening news or educators. It's something that needs to be taught one on one! We need to start parenting once again. You know, what happened to us " boomers " ? We got parented! It wasn't called that back then, but that is what it was. Boom! We were instructed, guided, and disciplined. What we did was our fault. The question was, " if your friends jumped off a bridge would you do that too? " The correct response was, no. Inwardly you realized you were stupid and had made a bad choice, it was your fault, no one else's. You learned how to respond correctly. You learned courtesy and respect. Both of those things seem to be missing these days. When I was young and those actions were missing, BOOM, I was reminded. Now, be quiet or I'll give you something to cry about.  

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