It seems like the recent year has been plagued with disappointment by way of people we once deemed at the top of the moral heap. It's been a rough year for us in terms of shock and horror at the truth we have found in those we once thought above reproach. Because of this brutal fall from social grace, I have come to realize that idolizing normal people who have been artificially pedestalled due to their fame, can be traumatic. Even as an adult, these realities we've been hit with are so far from what we believed that it seemed almost impossible. My brain has literally glitched over some of these recent revelations. "Does not compute. Error. Error." So here are just a few of the monumental disappointments we've had to suffer recently:
1. Cliff Huxtable the OBGYN is actually a serial rapist.
2. Brian Williams, a journalist paid to distribute unbiased truth, is actually a compulsive liar.
3. Tom Brady, one of the world's best role models for good sportsmanship is actually a cheater and a liar.
4. Lance Armstrong, revered for his survival and perseverance is actually a cheater and a liar.
5. America's most morally high and religiously sound family, the Duggars, actually harbor and protect a child molester at the expense of some of their other children and lie about it for the sake of fame and fortune.
These are just the ones off the top of my head. So what is the take away lesson here for our kids?
Well, in my opinion, teaching them to put their trust and admiration in the hands of fallible humans they really don't know anything about is dangerous. As we have seen proven over and over again recently, these people will disappoint our children and then we will have a lot of explaining to do.
So who should our children be admiring? Well, their parents for one. You are the closest people to your children. They know you better than anyone. It is least vulnerable for them to put their trust and faith in you. But, this means you now have a very close reason to keep yourself in check. We all fall down from where we'd like to be as parents from time to time. I for one have a horrific potty mouth that probably tells my children it's okay to be classless from time to time....completely the wrong message but still there it is.....
But, I think we take ourselves for granted as parents and we forget how awesome we are and how much our children do and should admire and respect us. They should know what we do, how we live our lives, what our struggles and successes are. They should learn from our mistakes and witness how we come back from a failure or a misstep. We are their best teachers. We are their best role models. We don't need to be an actor in a groundbreaking TV series, or an award winning international journalist, or a Super Bowl quarterback or the most famous cyclist in the world or the most fertile and prolific people on the planet. We just have to be honest and present.
So my challenge for everyone reading, and this includes myself, is to see yourself as that role model for your kids, to hold yourself to that expectation and to teach your kids to see you that way as well. We can't be accountable for other people's behavior so why put our children's admiration in those we have no control over? We CAN control our own behavior. We are the safest bet for our kids. We are real.
What our children learn from these inevitable disappointments society sets them up for by creating these facades in front of morally blank people is that they can't trust people. When all the while we should be doing everything we can to teach them WHO they can trust. My daughter is so vulnerable. She believes everything she hears on television. She tells me all the time, "Mommy we should buy that. The commercial says it's the best." I worry about her innocence and her genuine faith in humanity. I don't want to see it pummeled. I know I can't and shouldn't protect her from the harsh realities of the world. I want her to be resilient. But I believe that resilience is bolstered not just by scars from negative experiences but more so by a firm foundation in faith in the things that are real and steadfast and true. The most real, steadfast and true thing in the world for her is the love and security she gets from this family.
So just to gain some perspective on all of this, celebrities, characters and personas are going to continue to disappoint. I predict they will continue to drop like flies and society will get more and more cynical and desensitized to it. In the mean time, I want to work hard to provide something real that my kids can believe in. Something steadfast they can count on. Something true they can know. I want my kids to embody what will someday be the example. Maybe if we all do that, we can turn this sinking ship around.
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