Elana

I think our standards of respect for each other have slipped and slid and that is part of why drug abuse has become so acceptable as part of our culture.

Here is an example of my thinking:

I work in a professional office. Most of my professional level co workers are men. these are people with college degrees and titles and licenses to practice etc. I am one of the few women professionals here.

One of the common things to hear in this office are expletives. Most everyone works on a computer and that can get very frustrating. I know because I get frustrated.

however, i would say that it is common in any given hour of the day to hear "you B*st*ard! Sh*t! F**k! D*mn! S.O.B.! etc."

I would venture to say that 30 years ago even.. this was NOT acceptable language. Fact is, at the end of Gone With the Wind, when Rhett Butler says "Frankly my Dear, I don't give a Damn!" the swear word was almost cut and it shocked many people in the audience to have this word in the movie!!!

I know it is a simple thing but if this simple thing has slipped to where we cannot contain these words out of respect for others in an open office, what else has slipped as well?

Violent scenes on TV for sure.. scenes we expose our children to. Explicit sexual discussion and photos on TV sitcoms to many movies which we all now find acceptable that was not acceptable 30 years ago.

It used to be that parents did not use bad language in front of their kids and if their kids used bad language there were usually clear consequences for that behavior (I, for one, will never forget the taste of Dial Soap cakes!!!).. Again, this seems such a simple thing but self control and respect starts with the simple things.

I don't know your thoughts on this. Mine are that as society becomes less restrained and more permissive, the difference between right and wrong becomes muddied.

Today I sure do wish my coworkers would do one simple thing out of respect for themselves and each other.. and put the bad language on hold. I could complain and it would stop, but there are some battles you can win while losing the war overall.

Ann

Oh I could reply with pages and pages agreeing with you, Elana, it's about values, personal and those shared with others.

But I'll keep it short and just say, Amen, sister, Amen.

Momsrainbow

I could also write pages and pages. Gram is 104 and I think the worst they did back when she was young was go fishing when she was supposed to be doing farm chores. When I was young 5 nieghbors and I used to sneak an asprin bottle of booze-go to the drive-in movies on buck a carload and share the little bottle. My daughters used to skip school. My grandson just did not want to go to school and thank goodness all have turned out extremely well. My great-grandkids are still to little to get into much-but they are being taught the "old way'. A good old fashioned spanking works every time. As you know-last tenants were horrible. Smoked pot in front of their children, children knew it was wrong, told everyone they could tell. Home was a total destroyed dump. Kids could out cuss any adult I knew and parents thought it was "cute". Child welfare did not see interested-neighbors tried. After I settle down-I AM going to stick my nose in and find out why nothing can be done!!!! I think mental abuse is as bad as physical if not worse. Kids are not physically abused-never discipline. But the mental abuse they are living through will last them forever. I sure could go on forever-best stop!!!!! LOL Barb

GiveLove

There seem to be only a few things that are important to the vast majority of Americans these days:

---having as much "stuff" as possible (clothes, shoes, cars, jewelry, video games, iPhones...) no matter how many hours they have to work to earn money for this stuff

---not having to work hard for anything (there seems to be a time-saving, work-saving widget for everything these days...making more time for us to sit on our butts and watch TV)

---being able to do and say whatever they want, no matter what effect it has on others (that's "their" problem...right?)

---feeling great, 100% of the time, no matter what they have to do -- or ingest -- to get there, and without having to make any sort of effort to get there (counseling, compromise, weight loss, etc.)

---having other people behave exactly as we want them to behave, to permit all of the above

My husband has instructions (and permission) to shoot me in the head if I ever get to the point where I care so little about my fellow man that the above become more important than living out my days here as a decent, respectful, kind human being.

Amen, sister Elana

GL
not on a soapbox, more like a bar of soap (whoops!)

p.s. I always remember the soap comments in A Christmas Story..."Over the years I got to be quite a connoisseur of soap. Though my personal preference was for Lux, I found that Palmolive had a nice, piquant after-dinner flavor - heavy, but with a touch of mellow smoothness. Life Buoy, on the other hand... YECCHH!"

mooselips

I couldn't agree with you more.

My oldest has a fond way of using those expletives in everyday language. I finally came to the point the other day, and told him he sounds "uneducated" when he talks like that.

I could also go on and on and on....

Morality is gone, where I don't know, but gone.

Sad isn't it?

hello-kitty

I think that in order to change the world we must first start with ourselves.

Change starts within.

If you are offended but say nothing, it's pretty much the same as condoning. Tell em with a smile on your face that you are going to wash their mouth out with soap the next time you hear that word come out of their mouth.

They'll get the point, you will have done it with a smile and you will have made a small difference in the declining morals in our society.

But nothings going to change if you don't make change happen.

Reminds me of that saying if you don't vote, than you don't have much of a right to complain about the leadership.

bookmiser

Elana,

I couldn't agree more.
Just put a big ol' circle around my signature line.

Linda

Memories...

Mmm. Mmm.
Memories, light the corners of my mind
Misty watercolor memories of the way we were.
Scattered pictures of the smiles we left behind
Smiles we give to one another
For the way we were.
Can it be that it was all so simple then
Or has time rewritten every line?
If we had the chance to do it all again
Tell me would we? Could we?
Memories, may be beautiful and yet
What's too painful to remember
We simply choose to forget
So it's the laughter we will remember
Whenever we remember
The way we were.

Ann

You know what's strange? My son would curse up a storm sometimes around the house (and me). He knew my thoughts about swearing but I tried to be a little tolerant if he was trying to get something out, but not if he ever swore AT me.

That said, when we were with any of his friends, if I'd visit or if we were taking some to a meeting, and they swore at all, even mildly in the car, my son would turn to them and say "Don't use language like that around my mom!"

He KNEW better but didn't DO better on his own. Go Figure.

Hugs

raerae6

Y'know I just want to add that i think that attitudes about drugs changed a whole lot as a result of sixties culture and I think we still feel the effects today.

Also, before the sixties drugs were a problem, but it was more isolated in some sub-cultures. I was just talking to a friend the other day and he showed me some old family photos. His family had and still has a lot of jazz musicians. He was pointing out some people in these old photos who looked like regular 50's housewives and telling me of how they died young of a heroin overdose, and some died of alcoholism. I looked at these photos thinking of how strange it seemed to imagine these people doing heroin way back then. They looked soooo "normal". But heroin and cocaine and weed were very common in music communities since way back in the 20's.


When i was a little kid in the sixties I had this impression of drugs as being a really fun, positive thing. I remember sitting in the living room late one night with one of my siblings around Christmas time.

I was about 6 yrs. old and we were sitting in the dark with the lights on on the tree and candles and incense burning and I turned to my sister and said "I feel like smoking pot!!" I guess for some reason I associated this with candles and incense and so on. My sister was about 7 years older and she said "oh don't ever do that!" (Well she went on to experiment with drugs some, and so did all of us kids-my older brother was the first person to get me high when he drove me to school one day that i missed the bus).

But all 4 of us kids experimented with drugs when we got a little older (some more -some less).

My parents were completely sober people, so I did not get this attitude from them.

Even at that age I had an awareness I guess from what I absorbed through the culture at the time (music, books, people talking, the news...) that this was something I wanted to try out....

Unfortunatly some got addicted and some did not...

And also it seems that people are being prescibed pills for every discomfort and condition now in the present age. While I don't disagree with the need for psychiatric meds and meds for pain and other conditions, it seems that it is being a little over prescibed in some cases and for some conditions. I have read that more people are hooked on presciption drugs than illegal ones now days. Sometimes it seems like pharmaceutical companies are the biggest drug "pushers" in the present age....

just my 2 cents...

GiveLove

Right on rr. We're definitely a medicated culture....whatever is wrong, there is a substance that will make it go away. I especially relish it when my alcoholic stepmom complains about my coke addict brother to my uncle, who has already lost one lung to lung cancer but still smokes. My mom-in-law takes massive doses of antacids before all meals now...she can't seem to digest her food without them, she's abused them for so long. My X would stay up all night, drink no liquids except alcohol, do drugs and stare at the computer, then pop a handful (literally, like 8-10) advil for the headache he'd have in the morning. There's even a pill to take away the effects of the other pill...sigh...

I feel so left out of the process....all I do is chocolate

Elana

I awould normally agree with Hello Kitty and take the cussing to task. I have done similar in the past.

I was harassed and discriminated against by a female boss I had. I called her on it and it was dragged in front of the Union and Personnel and I freaking WON. I WON and she had to back off.

so, what happened after that is the whole thing deteriorated into a p*ssing match and she found ways to harass me publicly that were entirely legal using the rules. Things got so bad I decided to resign.

Essentially I won the battle but lost the war. I aslso lost a very good job in the process.

I have a great job now. I will NOT make the mistake I made before and fight this battle in my place of work or with my co workers. These guys are conservatives from top to bottom and I would win the battle but lose the war. No. I will say nothing here at work over this.

My point is the lesson should have been learned along with potty training when they were young. My lesson would fix it here but I would be resented completely and it would not change their attitudes, morals or sense of respect... it would merely creat resentment directed at me.

Same as we do with our Addicts. If we try to control their drug use they continue to use and resent us for our attempts at controlling that use, no matter how well intentioned we are.

GiveLove

I see your point, Elana.

You know, I used to work for a company where a very high-profile (arguably one of the highest-profile) CEO set the standard for using profanity. It was a daily, hourly, minutely occurrence all around me. You're right. There's no changing that culture without losing the war.

But I noticed that a lot of people were doing it unconsciously. Because they HADN'T been taught any limitations on it when they were littler, they just used it as regular speech. One manager was talking to me once about being angry at the "F-ing expense reports" and I stared at him for a second and then said, "Well, I'll see what I can do about your 'F-ing' expense reports" (making the little quote marks with my fingers in the air for his benefit) and I shook my head and laughed at him as I walked away.

That guy cleaned up his act around me, and never seemed to resent it. In hindsight, it was a gentle way to point out to him that not everybody finds profanity so invisible and inoffensive. He changed to "freakin' ", and "rotten" and "stinking" instead, and we were pretty good work buddies from then on.

It's not always hopeless. Maybe some day, on a couple of these people, you'll see an opening to gently make fun of their potty mouth in the same way. I'm sure they're not bad people. They just think that's the acceptable culture.

P.S. you wouldn't want to be around me while I'm watching a basketball game on television...and I *was* taught better as a child....

cece1960

Me too... except I'm watching football or hockey.

Lets not get too carried away with blaming their upbringing. I taught my kids appriopriate language just as my parents taught me.
And we all know what can happen once they start making their own choices

My kids are pretty careful around me...out of respect I guess. But they slip here and there and usually apologize. However, I have no idea what happens out of my ear range.

Elana....I would wonder if any of those co-workers talk that way in front of their Mother?!

splendra

Their use of foul language does not seem to be a conservative trait. Maybe there is something in the middle that is not so conservative.

It seems that some conservatives have a lot of double standards

Elana

A lot of PEOPLE have double standards!!!!!

I am in a field that is not highly populated with wimen.. so some of these guys never worked with a woman who is on their level. Still, with all the training about harassment and all the rest you would think... but then, if you are cussing you are plikely NOT thinking?

It isn't "just" cussing. It is a lot more than that. The bad language is merely symptomatic of a greater problem.. a greater permissiveness.

And yup.. you can teach those puppies right but if they get hanging with the wrong dogs when they grow up they slip.....

Wascally Wabbit

Amen Elana. What's worse than working with a bunch of cussing men? Vicious gossipers.

I did work in a heavy equiptment rental place a long time ago. I remember all the bad language, and the horrid jokes about women. I hated it. But, nothing could be done to stop it since it was a mom and pop operation.