Public Behavior: Ma Says To Rein It In, Kids!
Mamacita says: Caroline Lake Quiner Ingalls knew how to raise her children so that they would know how to behave themselves properly no matter where they might find themselves.
In Little Town on the Prairie, a teen-aged Laura is invited to a party. She had gone, years ago, to a little girls’ party, but this was entirely different. This was a high school party. Laura had no idea what to expect, and no idea how she was supposed to behave in this unknown situation.
Laura’s Ma, on the other hand, knew exactly what to tell Laura about public behavior. Please pay attention, parents, because this applies even today. Remember: people of any age and background will always be more confident when they know how to behave. And when they know how to behave, the smart ones WILL behave. But first, they have to know how to behave.
(After reading the invitation) Laura sat limply down. Ma took the invitation from her hand and read it again.
“It’s a party,” Ma said. “A supper party.”
“Oh, Laura! You’re asked to a party!” Carrie exclaimed. Then she asked, “What is a party like?”
“I don’t know,” Laura said. “Oh, Ma, what will I do? I never went to a party. How must I behave at a party?”
“You have been taught how to behave wherever you are, Laura,” Ma replied. “You need only behave properly, as you know how to do.”
If we teach our children how to behave properly wherever they go, EVERYBODY, including the children themselves, will have a better time. People who know how to behave themselves are more welcome, more inclined to be invited back, and more deserving of praise, privileges, and all other positive “things.”
These days, a lot of adults don’t seem to know how to behave themselves in public, either. We can all learn a lot from Laura’s Ma. She knew her stuff.
I think parents worry far too much about their children’s self esteem these days. Genuine self-esteem must be earned. We aren’t born deserving self-esteem; we have to deserve it. It must be EARNED. I think a polite,well-behaved child with an awareness of how nice people act in public is far more deserving of a sense of high self-esteem than is a brat the OTHER kind of child. A person of any age who knows how to restrain themselves, be patient, and act right no matter what’s going on, is always more pleasant to be around. Young parents, your children will not always be in situations wherein they can give free rein to their impulses and desire to play actively. Be sure to teach them this important fact, because few things are more unpleasant than to be subjected to undisciplined children running wildly and loudly in a public place. And if there is a more beautiful sight than well-behaved children in public, I haven’t come across it yet. I’m not talking about slimy little Eddie Haskells; I’m talking about a regular kid who’s been taught manners and is not merely expected, but REQUIRED, to use them in public.
To think otherwise is to fool only yourself. The children know. Don’t underestimate them. They KNOW. They’ll do what they know they can get by with. They KNOW. When will a lot of adults learn?
Ma Ingalls, you did it right. Thank you, Laura, for getting it all down in your books. It’s such a simple philosophy, and there’s no reason every sentient person shouldn’t be able to utilize it.
Note: Don’t even think about assuming I’m putting down SPED. I’ll only taunt you for not being a careful reader.
Oh, parents, I hope you have the entire Little House series in your homes. Don’t waste your time or money on the TV series, though; that was the pits. The books, however, are jewels, every one of them.
Quotation Saturday: Let Us Help One Another
Mamacita says: Sometimes it takes a major catastrophe to remind us that we are all living on the same planet; that we all have the same basic needs; that the entire universe is based on Six Degrees of Separation; that the wheel of life turns and turns and the fly on the top will be the fly on the bottom eventually; that everything evens out because the rich have ice in the summer and the poor have it in the winter; and that if we don’t reach out a helping hand when we see someone within reach who needs one, nobody will reach out a helping hand to us when, as we eventually and inevitably will, need one ourselves.
The Samaritan had come from far away, while the priest and the Levite lived fairly nearby. But it was the foreigner who helped the stranger; the others did not wish to get involved. The first question which the priest and the Levite asked was: “If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?” But… the good Samaritan reversed the question: “If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?” –Martin Luther King, Jr.
1. A good deed becomes tainted when you expect something in return. — Duane Alan Hahn
2. It is one of the most beautiful compensations in life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself. — Ralph Waldo Emerson
3. Nothing is so hard for those who abound in riches to conceive how others can be in want. — Jonathan Swift
4. He who waits to do a great deal of good at once, will never do anything. — Samuel Johnson
5. Charity is injurious unless it helps the recipient to become independent of it. — John D. Rockefeller
6. The measure of life is not its duration, but its donation. — Peter Marshall
7. A bone to the dog is not charity. Charity is the bone shared with the dog, when you are just as hungry as the dog. — Jack London
8. If service is the rent you pay for your existence on this earth, are you behind in your rent? — Robert G Allen
9. I resolved to stop accumulating and begin the infinitely more serious and difficult task of wise distribution.
— Andrew Carnegie
10. Is the rich world aware of how four billion of the six billion live? If we were aware, we would want to help out, we’d want to get involved. — Bill Gates
11. The deed is everything, the glory naught. — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
12. There is a natural law, a Divine law, that obliges you and me to relieve the suffering, the distressed and the destitute. — Conrad Hilton
13. An attitude of gratitude creates blessings.. Help yourself by helping others. You have the most powerful weapons on earth.. love and prayer. — John Templeton
14. It is easy to love the people far away. It is not always easy to love those close to us. It is easier to give a cup of rice to relieve hunger than to relieve the loneliness and pain of someone unloved in our own home. Bring love into your home for this is where our love for each other must start. — Mother Teresa
15. It is every man’s obligation to put back into the world at least the equivalent of what he takes out of it. — Albert Einstein
16. Giving frees us from the familiar territory of our own needs by opening our mind to the unexplained worlds occupied by the needs of others. — Barbara Bush
17. God answers sharp and sudden on some prayers,
And thrusts the thing we have prayed for in our face,
A gauntlet with a gift in it. — Elizabeth Barrett Browning
18. I have found that among its other benefits, giving liberates the soul of the giver. — Maya Angelou
19. There is a wonderful mythical law of nature that the three things we crave most in life — happiness, freedom, and peace of mind — are always attained by giving them to someone else. — Peyton Conway March
20. All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. — Edmund Burke
21. Service is the rent we pay for being. It is the very purpose of life, and not something that you do in your spare time. — Marion Wright Edelman
22. What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult for each other? — George Elliot
23. The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not the hate them, but to be indifferent to them. That’s the essence of inhumanity. — George Bernard Shaw
24. Charity sees the need, not the cause. — German proverb
25. He who gives when he is asked has waited too long. — Lucius Annaeus Seneca 
26. The best portion of a good man’s life – his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and love. — William Wordsworth
27. If those who owe us nothing gave us nothing, how poor we would be. — Antonio Porchia
28. Being considerate of others will take your children further in life than any college degree. — Marian Wright Edelman
29. Open your heart – open it wide; someone is standing outside. — Mary Engelbreit
30. I expect to pass through life but once. If therefore, there be any kindness I can show, or any good thing I can do to any fellow being, let me do it now, and not defer or neglect it, as I shall not pass this way again. — William Penn
31. If you can’t feed a hundred people, then just feed one. — Mother Teresa
32. How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world. — Anne Frank
33. I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And I will not let what I cannot do interfere with what I can do. — Edward Everett Hale
34. This is the true joy in life – being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; being a force of nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. — George Bernard Shaw
35. If you have no will to change it, you have no right to criticize it. — Author Unknown
36. Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity. — Horace Mann
37. The great use of life is to spend it for something that outlasts it. — William James
38. If you have time to whine and complain about something then you have the time to do something about it. — Anthony J. D’Angelo
39. If you think you are too small to be effective, you have never been in bed with a mosquito.
— Betty Reese
40. If you’re too busy to give your neighbor a helping hand, then you’re just too darned busy. — Marie T. Freeman
41. Do something for somebody every day for which you do not get paid. — Albert Schweitzer
42. Believe, when you are most unhappy, that there is something for you to do in the world. So long as you can sweeten another’s pain, life is not in vain. — Helen Keller
43. Success has nothing to do with what you gain in life or accomplish for yourself. Its what you do for others. — Danny Thomas
44. When a person is down in the world, an ounce of help is better than a pound of preaching. — Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton
45. The impersonal hand of government can never replace the helping hand of a neighbor. — Hubert H. Humphrey
46. A life isn’t significant except for its impact on other lives. — Jackie Robinson
47. When you cease to make a contribution, you begin to die. — Eleanor Roosevelt
48. Compassion is not religious business; it is human business, it is not luxury; it is essential for our own peace and mental stability; it is essential for human survival. — Dalai Lama
49. Anywhere I see suffering, that is where I want to be, doing what I can. — Diana, Princess of Wales
50. Don’t spend your precious time asking ‘Why isn’t the world a better place?’ It will only be time wasted. The question to ask is ‘How can I make it better?’ To that there is an answer. — Leo F. Buscaglia
Bonus: Business! Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were all my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business! –Charles Dickens
Dead? Again?
Mamacita says: Lady Gaga? I know who she is, but have no interest in hearing her sing or carry on or shake hands with the Queen whilst in full GagaGear.
However, I have to add that she might want to hire new publicity people as her current ones seem to have a one-track mind.
Last night at the pub, right in the middle of beer pong fine family restaurant in which my daughter and I were having a late-night snack, in the middle of a group participation stunt, the DJ stopped everything and announced that Lady Gaga was dead.
Again.
I was just wondering if she’d ever read “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” as a child.
