RESPECT

Respect!

Respect God!

Respect your parents!

Respect yourself!

Respect your elders!

Respect!

 

Oh, in case you didn’t know, that’s something we were taught as children, it was basic, common knowledge, almost like instinct..... something we are born with.

In my opinion however, I believe respect has become extinct, like dinosaurs, ladies and gentlemen, and black and white televisions without remotes.

Respect used to be something that was taught and engrained in us beginning with infancy; something we carried, and shared until the day we died. Unfortunately a lot of our youth today, have no idea what it means to give your seat up on the bus to a woman, especially an elderly woman, or a man either for that matter.

They think you’re crazy for helping Ms. Johnson take her groceries to her steps, without pay. Imagine that!

It used to be proper and automatic for children to say “Yes mam, no mam. Yes sir, no sir. Or thank you.

” Now I’m not sure where it happened, or how it happened, but somehow, some way, something is wrong with you if you show respect, you’re considered a “punk” or something like one by your peers if you do something such as open the car door, and close it for your lady, or any door, for any lady for that matter!

What happened to the respect for parents? Oh, I believe not all of it, but a lot of it went away when the crack epidemic began. When babies who were born to addicted parents grow up, some of them forgive, but a lot of them don’t. Some follow in the footsteps of their addicted mother, and or father. Some harbor resentment and anger, that they may need professional psychological help for, but never receive. Imagine how it would feel to grow up in someone else’s home, other than the person who gave you life? How much respect would you have for them? How much respect would you have for your absentee drug addicted father, especially if he knew you existed and acted as if you didn’t? Or maybe he was incarcerated, and you never knew him at all, how much respect would you have for that “man”?

And there is nothing sadder than seeing a crack addict who looks like someone’s grandma and grandpa on the streets, asking for spare change or walking with urinated stained jeans, nevertheless still drinking a tall can of Old English 800, trying to hide it in a paper bag! How do you, or do you respect them? When they don’t respect themselves? We have to give respect in order to have it bestowed upon us, I get that. But we also have to realize and take every opportunity we can to reach out to a child, any child who will listen, and teach them respect, simply by giving them a little bit of ours.

I believe the African Proverb “it takes a village to raise a child”, should still apply now more than ever. Anyone can shake their heads and say “what a shame.” I come from a time when certain people were able to catch you doing something wrong, give you a butt whuppin’, and take you to your mama, tell her, and you would get it again. Nowadays, people think it’s disrespectful to put your hands on someone else’s child like that. Nowadays it’s considered “child abuse” to put your hands on your own child to discipline them, or they can call the police on you, (their parent).

My take on that, is if we don’t discipline our own children, they will have to depend on the judicial system to try to “beat some sense into them” for us; being miserable, singing the “woe is me” song, saying “where did I go wrong?”

 

Bottom line, when we know better, we do better. Our children (everybody's children) are our future, please don’t let r-e-s-p-e-c-t become non-existent in their lives, because if we are blessed to live to be old, guess who we will rely on for our future leadership? Guess who we will have to rely on to be our caretakers some day? Respectful children, or disrespectful ones? I want respectful ones, don’t you?

 

Yes Sir! Yes Mam!

 

Thank You,

 

Antoinette D. Johnson

 

~Keepin~it~Real~4realpoetess~

 

January 22, 2011