This is a picture my kid made of me 17 years ago. I made him “odd” he says but I hope I made him other things too.
I’m not perfect. I have a dark chocolate and sea salt candy bar twice the size of a checkbook hiding in my purse. It’s hiding for a reason. I’m selfish about my chocolate. I once hid the last Corona behind a bottle of yellow mustard hoping it might blend in until I made it home from work. I’ve left the car with no gas and sometimes I don’t put things back in the right aisle when I’m at the grocery store.
I was a selfish, selfish little girl. I once told sixteen strangers at the mall that I needed money to make a call home just so I could collect enough cash to buy myself a Big Mac meal. I stole from my own grandmother even though she gave me my first diamond, my first real bedroom set and paid for half my college. I stared in every mirror I passed so mesmerized was I by the very fact of ME.
Let’s face it, on the Titanic, I would have stepped on your head to prevent getting my feet wet.
Going home to take care of my Dad was the first selfless thing I ever did and as selfless actions often are, it was hard but it couldn’t have come at a better time. I was about to become a mother and what better time to take a back seat to your own inflated ego then when you are responsible for another human’s upbringing.
A few years after that I was ohh all of about 24 and my son was nearing kindergarten age when I went, courtesy of grandma, to Disney World. I remember watching all those perfect looking families pushing and shoving their way to the front of the line. I remember watching their children pouting and whining when they didn’t get that second five foot cotton candy cone.
I wanted no part of whatever they were selling or buying and I told Beau if we didn’t get on the ride then it wouldn’t be the end of the world.
If you want your children to learn kindness you have to be kind; otherwise it is like telling your kids technology is dangerous then spending all your free time cruising face book, tapping on your phone, and watching re-runs of the Real Housewives.
Your point is moot and they won’t retain it or respect you and your words.
So, as you pay for your order while on the phone or drop change on the counter; as you park in the fire lane or the handicap space; as you snap at the waitress, or pull into the parking space first; as you drop doors on the people behind you or sit while older others around you have to stand; as you fight for the very last Dancing Elmo or use the side of the road as a personal passing lane, your children are watching and learning.
You just better make sure it’s a lesson you want them to learn.
The thing is when you show up for other people, when you put other people first well, it feels good. And sometimes they return the favor and all of the sudden you are surrounded by a really great group of loving, caring people that you call family-friends-neighbors or acquaintances; your village.
Like I said I’m not perfect. Don’t dare to interrupt this girl during beer- bath- bubble time or try to cut a night out short because I like to stay out till the lights go on. When I put myself first it’s sometimes important and sometimes selfish and I have learned to decipher between the two.
It might seem like in this hurry-scurry world of rushing to activities and trying to keep our kids successful at sports and school and extra curricular activities aplenty and trying to keep up with those awfully-annoying ever-enduring Joneses that selfishness is par for the course and that in fact it might be necessary. If we don’t put ourselves first then who will?
But what’s so great about being first? Who said being at the front of the line was the best place to be?
THEY say we are currently raising the most selfish entitled generation to date.
THEY say we are raising children that have no manners or empathy or can’t even read others’ facial cues, which is a prerequisite for empathy.
THEY say we are raising a group of brats.
I plan to prove THEM wrong.
And know this. If you and I were on the Titanic this day, I would invite you into my lifeboat and I’m pretty sure my kids would to and if they wouldn’t well, then I haven’t done my job and I’ve got to get off the computer right now because I’ve got work to do.
About Rebecca Suder