Addendum and followup

What I'm depressed about, part two.

So I ranted about respect, and how just as I came of age, the rules changed. The behavior that was expected and demanded of me as a child--the "respect your elders," the "ma'am" and the "Mrs." and such--are no longer required of young people today. Just when it got to be MY turn to be on the receiving end, the rules changed.

Here is insight offered by others on the subject:

From a teacher in the UK:
Mrs. S... does make a strong point. When it comes right down to it, I'd rather have a 15-year-old call me "sweetie" and then listen to me, as opposed to calling me "ma'am" and then disregarding every word I say.

My brother had much to say. Too much, in fact, to quote directly. What I take away from it is this:

People back then, and people now, meant two different things when they said "respect." In my childhood, when an adult said, "You'd better respect me," the translation was, "You'd better obey me." Not the same thing at all. Respect is a mental action. Obedience is a physical action. Those adults would see the obedience, and call it respect, when on the inside the child may have been feeling anything but.

I know that in my case, pretty darn near all of the time, what I was feeling was not respect but fear, dread, and occasionally hatred. I didn't behave because I was a "good kid." I behaved because I was terrified of that belt, switch, hairbrush, or whatever was going to be used on me if I didn't.

Sure, we all WANT respect, but there are those who will settle for obedience born of fear, because it looks the same.

You know, sometimes on Facebook I come across one of those "repost if you agree" status updates that talks about, "Our generation was raised this way and that way, and we turned out OK." I never repost those things. I most certainly did not "turn out OK." I've had to work hard to even approach being normal.

The reason it bothered me, when I say life Calvined me by changing the rules, is this: Just when I came of age and qualified to be "ma'am" and "Mrs.," society decreed, "You know what? That's passé. Let's stop doing that." Why did it make me feel as it did? Déja vu. It reminds me of many a game during my childhood, in which when it was my turn to be "it," the other children all simultaneously heard their mothers calling them.

Well, at this point, thanks to the help from these people, I am no longer feeling like setting fire to myself (FIGURATIVELY speaking!) because someone doesn't call me "ma'am." But, as I say, this is a series. My next installment will be something I touched on in the first: How every conflict or hurt turns out to be my fault, the result of my character flaw, never the other person's.