Values Are Taught
I’m the youngest of 8 children born to immigrant parents. We lived in a four room apartment complex in Chicago, Illinois; the apartment I was born in.
Growing up in my family was not about how little or how much we had. It was about what we were taught to value. We devoted our lives to God, Country and Family. We learned to value our reputation through honor, honesty, loyalty, humility and morality. We learned how to persevere when faced with adverse conditions. We learned to support each other, our friends and our neighbors. We believed we were decent people because we were appreciated and we appreciated others. Did we make mistakes? Plenty! Did we own up to our mistakes? We had no choice. Our consequences were how our mistakes de-valued us. That hurt more than any punishment my parents could have bestowed on us.
What makes this significant is that I don’t believe my Mom or Dad knew they were teaching us these values. They simply lived by them and held us accountable to them; if I came home and told my mom “I hate my friend Judy” by mom would ask me to describe how being ‘hateful’ made me feel? I also don’t believe I knew I was learning these values until I became a parent, hopefully perpetuating these values on my own children.
Today, when we strive to give our children better lives than what we had we must consider whether or not we are living by the values we want them to learn. Circumstances, environments, technology, education and events can put us in a constant state of flux while the one real constant in our life and our children’s life, is a life with value. The old saying “The more things change, the more they stay the same” is worth reflecting on. Values don’t change. They merely call on us to live by them so that our children can have more of the same. Hugs!
