Thundering Moralism and Shame

After taking the girls off at school this morning I had to return home, pick a few things up, and go back to school. By then classes had started. On my way in the building I witnessed a mother coaxing her son up the steps. I heard her telling him “It’s okay, honey, you’re just late.” And a glance at the boy’s face revealed a very forlorn expression as he plodded reluctantly upwards.

Nothing unusual – we’ve all had these moments.

But I caught another snippet of her conversation as I went through the door. “It happens to everyone, sweetie, all of the time. You’re just late. There’s absolutely no shame in being late.”

And this is where the world pivots ever-so-slightly on an axis of right and wrong, and the way in which we raise our children matters. The boy, maybe a second grader, is in the process of getting socialized – learning normative behavior from his peers. Obviously a reluctant shuffling up the school steps was a sign that he knows that walking into class ten minutes after the bell is not the expected behavior. The mother could have responded by saying this doesn’t happen very often, or by telling her son that the teacher won’t be angry. But instead she went much further by suggesting there is “absolutely no shame”. Johnny is completely off the hook.

Shame is a loaded word, of course. People think of thundering moralistic (and hypocritical) preachers telling their congregation that they are filthy, despicable creatures for engaging in various behaviors. It’s one thing to condemn a child – this would never be appropriate - but it’s something else to completely absolve responsibility. I’m not in favor of shame – but I do endorse a small note of sheepishness mixed with a need to improve.

I’m only talking in generalities here; I don’t know this family, and there may be reasons why the mother’s approach was justified. He might be so fearful of social situations – he might already have such an overdeveloped sense of guilt that the mother’s pleas were appropriate. Or maybe she wouldn’t normally have phrased things that way – she’s just trying to get her son up the damn steps because she needs to be at work. Again, we’ve all had those moments.

But I think of the mother I saw a few months ago in the park, beating her son with a shoe. There was so much yelling that it was impossible not to hear the details. The boy, maybe around 12 years old, had stolen money from a neighbor. I think he probably deserved some kind of punishment – although bludgeoning a child with footwear, however fashionable, would not have been my approach. But what struck me were the words of admonishment from the mother. She was saying - and I paraphrase – how could you be so stupid as to steal from somebody who lives next door? Don’t you know they are going to find out? How stupid are you?

What an incredible message: Yes, feel the shame, child - but not for the mere act of stealing. Instead, feel bad for being so stupid as to pick the wrong target. What type of moral universe will this kid inhabit by the time he becomes an adult? How many people are raised with a similar outlook – that life is what you can get away with? I’m not a fan of Hillary, and I have some serious concerns about her big government “village” raising my child – but there’s one point on which people from all political avenues can agree. Our society is only as good as the lessons we leave our children. It might be faith-based, it might be secular – but without some framework for virtue things will fall quite depressingly apart.

Tags: Morality, Education, Child-rearing