Hold People to A Higher Standard

Kids dressing like kids 🙂

This morning like most I am getting a little reading done before I head to work. Unlike my parents, my morning reading doesn’t come in the form of a newspaper dropped at my doorstep. Instead, it is delivered to my email, my RSS feed and my social media timelines. This morning, I saw a familiar thread and all I can think is I hold myself and others to a higher standard. The pieces that really solidifed this were on two incredibly different topics:

PARENTING – A long-time friend posted something to Facebook that I have to point people to. I try hard not to tell people how to raise their kids, but somehow I had to send this article along because I think kids should be kids. (I know, I’ve said that before LOL.) But if you don’t read the whole article on CNN by sportswriter LZ Granderson at least read this:

I don’t care how popular Lil’ Wayne is, my son knows I would break both of his legs long before I would allow him to walk out of the house with his pants falling off his butt. Such a stance doesn’t always makes me popular — and the house does get tense from time to time — but I’m his father, not his friend.

Friends bow to peer pressure. Parents say, “No, and that’s the end of it.”

The way I see it, my son can go to therapy later if my strict rules have scarred him. But I have peace knowing he’ll be able to afford therapy as an adult because I didn’t allow him to wear or do whatever he wanted as a kid.

Maybe I’m a Tiger Dad.

Maybe I should mind my own business.

Or maybe I’m just a concerned parent worried about little girls like the one I saw at the airport.

In 2007, the American Psychological Association’s Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls issued a report linking early sexualization with three of the most common mental-health problems of girls and women: eating disorders, low self-esteem and depression. There’s nothing inherently wrong with parents wanting to appease their daughters by buying them the latest fashions. But is getting cool points today worth the harm dressing little girls like prostitutes could cause tomorrow?

A line needs to be drawn, but not by Abercrombie. Not by Britney Spears. And not by these little girls who don’t know better and desperately need their parents to be parents and not 40-year-old BFFs.

via Parents, don’t dress your girls like tramps – CNN.com.

ANIMAL ABUSE:  It seems like there is always some group out there waiting to expose farmers for abusing animals. My friend Ray Prock is keeping a list of farm blogs on the topic. I’ve said it before, when it comes to abusing animals, I don’t get it and I don’t want to. And I agree fully with Mike Haley that if someone knows of abuse going on, it should be reported to legal authorities IMMEDIATELY as it is a crime to abuse animals. But we also have to question people’s motives which this group seems to have made clear according to Mike (because I refuse to have those images in my head):

At the end of the video there is a message from the group that conducted the undercover investigation urging watchers to “go vegan” to end animal abuse.  I have a different message that I would like to share, animal abuse is not caused by eating meat or animal products.  Animal abuse is the result of disturbed individuals that have little to no respect of the life of the animal that they are abusing.

I would like to thank Mercy For Animals (MFA) for finding and reporting this abuse to authorities after they were done with their two week investigation, even though I feel that they should have reported it quicker.  This is one of several undercover video’s that was released by this group over the past few years.  Surely they have been on thousands of farms that treat their animals with respect.  If this group really want to show America how farm animals are treated across the majority of farms in the United States that they show footage from these thousands of farms as well.

via Haley Farms.

For me, I am lucky my youngest niece is content being a kid. My sister pointed out she hasn’t even asked for some of the stuff the reporter points to. And I know her grownups (including this aunt) would help her understand some things are just not done. And my nephews only have trouble keeping their pants up cause they are so darn skinny, we all try to get the right sizes, no buying jeans 3 sizes too big to hang off. It would be a tough conversation to have with family about their kids, but family should have the tough conversations now rather than wait for therapists the way Granderson points out. And when it comes to animals, we have quite a few pets in the family. The only abuse I’ve seen is the sweater my sister put on her dog when it was really cold. It was only abusive cause I thought it was not attractive. But my sister explained the dog is really short-haired, a bit older and it was really really cold.

So, what about you? What standards do you hold people to?