Thursday's Thought

Obedience. Makes some people cringe. Makes others laugh. Makes others nod with appreciable regret. For a few, the notion of perfect obedience is a goal, a way of life, a task that bespeaks a chivalry often too hard to master.

In ordinary life, obedience is generally something we pawn off on our kids while we reject the idea for ourselves completely. And as children become less and less obedient, we wonder why.

One parent I knew couldn’t understand why his child constantly defied him. I asked him how many traffic tickets he had gotten in the past five years. “Too many to count,” he replied with a smirk. I looked at the man who was truly not admirable. “If you want to know why your child behaves the way he does, go look in the mirror.”

Obedience is the mastery of the human condition. There are simply certain things that we must do (obedience) in order to have a positive (mastery) of life (human condition.) As we absurdly demand obedience for our children, we assume the ridiculous posture of the proverbial free spirit for ourselves casting away the idea of obedience to anyone. It’s a show not to miss.

While instructing a child about good health and yanking a cookie out of his hand and telling him to turning down sweets and eat at appropriate times, the instructor puffs away on a cigarette, has eaten three meals on run, and will finish the six pack upon reaching home.

While insisting a child be trim, clean, and speak well, the parent resembles a small elephant, dresses like a bag person, and destroys the English language so profoundly he can’t be understood by visiting English speaking tourists.

“Go to bed,” yells the parent from the TV room as he gazes into the lifeless tube way into the late hours of the evening. “Go study. Go read a book,” continues the parent to the child. We all want our children to succeed academically, to have a good vocabulary, to be able to think clearly. And we read what? Junk novels and romance magazines?

Old Kinderhook, you say. (That’s where the expression OK came from.) OK, so we’re not perfect. So what? Do as I say not as I do. But that’s not how it works. It works by example Industrious parents most often rear industrious children. Indolent selfish parents rear indolent selfish children. Behavior is taught. Whatever example is set at home becomes the model the child will initially aim for.

The truth is it takes less energy to do nearly anything right the first time. If you don’t over eat, you won’t be sick. If you don’t drink too much, you won’t have a hang over. If you do your homework, your teacher won’t be angry. If you go to bed on time, you will feel good when you wake up. If you put your things away, you won’t have a mess.

Really intelligent gifted children discover early, even when the parent’s example is insidious, that a parent’s failure to understand order and create chaos makes them work twice as hard to succeed. Remarkable children will take a shortcut. It’s called obedience.

Obedience demands a kind of personal surrender as much as it demands trust and example. Is there someone we respect without reservation? Probably not. Is there anyone that could command obedience from us with a single word? There are few if any.

Now the bigger question: are we an exemplary example? Are we trustworthy? What do our children see in us that would herald obedience?

Mastery of the human condition is a never ending story. It doesn’t stop with the high school diploma. It is the ongoing quest for an excellent life.