The All-american Family

THE ALL-AMERICAN FAMILY

What the heck is that? Years ago you could identify an “All-American” family but the truth of the matter is in today’s mores, what was once honored may in fact get you and your spouse into big trouble. If I can just briefly recall, the exemplary family of twenty-five years ago had a mother and father and from 2 to 4 kids that basically knew what it meant to behave. Remember? Now they just didn’t grow up this way…no. Parents had to actually exert effort and example in order for the children to “turn out right.” There were, most definitely varying ways for parents to extrude this behavior. Some used the rod and some gave time-outs but both saw the value in discipline. Believe it or not, society actually helped in the process. I am not suggesting in any way that it “took a village” for this to happen but it did not detract from the process. It was not forbidden, as example for a parent to actually disallow their offspring from participating in events that they perceived as harmful whether that was a racy movie (my mother removed my sister from “To Russia With Love” by announcing to a packed theatre, “If [my sister’s name] is in this theatre she had better meet me out front, right now!”) or an event that put boys and girls in a compromising position…slow dancing! Well, I mean things were different as they are in every generation but how far can we go? When did morality become a joke? When did discipline become a bad word? When did slow dancing become intercourse and when did disrespect for parents lead to divorcing them? Has my generation become more concerned with being “like” our kids than being role models for them?

Many years ago when I was in my period of thinking my parents were idiots because they didn’t like the Beatles and insisted that I cut my shaggy hair I flew to a job interview and on the way back I sat next to a big, burly man, the kind that causes you to have a spinal realignment while trying to maintain your space in an airline seat. I was exhausted and looking forward to a nap but made the proper, but ill-advised gesture by introducing myself. Well, my name rang a bell in this gentleman’s mind. He was a bank investigator and new my father. As truth has it he was sent to investigate my father regarding a land development where my dad, as a Realtor® had been instrumental in putting together the land. Over the course of the flight he went into detail about his association with my father. For three days he sifted through the records regarding all transactions. He queried and poked and dug and supposed. After hours of inspection and interview he revealed nothing other than a realization that his organization owed my father much more than was on the books. Just as we were landing, this mountain of a man, with misty eyes shook my hand and remarked, “Your father is the most honest man I have ever met.”

I was not surprised. I knew my dad and through daily interaction had been taught and more importantly had mirrored the actions of an honest man. We were not buddies, my father and I yet we had a great relationship and a bond that affects me to this day, long after his life has passed.

Where did the All-American family go? Perhaps the family “evolved” with the demonizing of roles, position and place, the simple walls that divided parents from friends and respect from equality. Perhaps it frayed when moral leadership was attributed to God without an echoing giggle. Let me clarify, I am not using the term All-American in a racial sense. I am only stating that the fiber of America, the things that made us and to some extent still make us great are the things, the beliefs that make us Americans, people from a specific country. These fibers that wove a glorious tapestry across modern history allowed us to act on simple, clear beliefs, even to the point of death. It called us to sacrifice youth and family for ideals that made this growing culture different. It was birthed in the minds of feeble men. Because it was, wasn’t it divine intervention when noble men put all on the line in defense of freedom and all for the words, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness..”

As these fibers, the Judeo-Christian beliefs of family structure and morality begin to be unwound our national fabric becomes tattered and the All-American family, the core of this great society is in danger of fading into history. And if this basic thread gone, can our nation be far behind?

The All-american Family