I am sure I am not the first generation to whinge about the following and that is also the scary part too. I’ll use my dear old neighbours as an example for this as for one they don’t use the internet much, let alone find their way here and secondly if they do they are respectful enough not to mention anything and I might even receive the highly prized nod of agreement from them.
As mentioned a few hundred times before my neighbours are elderly. They are dear old souls who have been together since late teens/early twenties and our now very sprightly in their 80’s. Things on their side of the fence is done a very particular way. Fish on Friday, shopping on a Tuesday and clothes washing when its needed. Their gardens and their home are spotless. This is how they like it and they have the time to keep on top of it all. They have reached the age in life that they do as they please and they don’t/won’t change for anyone. For them, their way is the right and the only way.
I of course am considered the odd ball for not having a immaculate garden and for being the odd one who doesn’t make my own pastry or have fish on Fridays. My lawn isn’t mowed every week so I am thought of as having no structure in my life and no pride. In their defence these things have never been said but I just get the feeling that’s how they view me. But the point I am getting to ( yes there is a point to all this ) is that it doesn’t bother me. It doesn’t bother me as I respect them as my elders. They have lived a very long and interesting life. When we do stop and natter over the fence its always a pleasure. I always learn something and always come away inspired. They haven’t done amazing things like climbed Mount Everest or tight roped across the Grand Canyon. They have just lived a normal life.
The younger generation don’t see this side of them. They don’t particularly think older people deserve respect. I don’t mean my neighbours in this I mean in general. It seems the younger population don’t have respect these days. They don’t seem to have respect for parents, any one older or anyone in authority. There use to be a time parents could say ‘if you don’t behave I will get PC Plod to have a word with you’ and that was enough to scare the hardest of ruffians. But we don’t live in a life of ruffians and scallywags any more and even if you could find PC Plod I probably wouldn’t scare the life out of today’s misfits.
So where has the respect gone? Why do people think they are so self important that no one else deserves their respect? I try and install respect for others in my two children as I bring them up but not all parents do this so am I just fighting a loosing battle and have to accept that respect is something only found in Famous Five books along with lashing of ginger beer.
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