Don’t quote me
Every year for Christmas, Mom gets me a new calendar. For years, she chose Far Side calendars, then Gary Larson retired and she had to find a new theme. Knowing my love for sayings (she’s the one who started me collecting them in the first place), it seemed natural for her to choose a Quote of the Day.
Although I’ve run across several keepers so far, one recent quote hit me wrong, prompting me to tear off the page, wad it up, and toss it in the trash. A few minutes later, I pulled it back out, curious about the reaction it had triggered in me.The quote came from a writer named Marcelene Cox. “A child can never be better than what his parents think of him.”
Total rubbish, I thought. (Funny how my thoughts come in italics and often sound British.) What anyone thinks about you can only hold you back if you let it.
Putting all the responsibility on the parents relieves a child from having to try. It says, It’s not up to you. You can blame someone else for what you don’t do. Sure, children whose parents believe in their abilities have a tremendous head start, but those who don’t-don’t get a free pass.
And thinking that way sounds suspiciously like rationalization.
Rationalization is, for me, a long-practiced skill. It’s what enables me to qualify French fries as a vegetable, apple turnovers as fruit, and pudding as dairy. It makes it possible for me to call getting passionately involved watching weekly ball games as participating regularly in rigorous physical sports, to unblinkingly blame the dryer for my jeans being too tight, and to feel comfortable about my solid retirement plan even though a good deal of it involves lottery tickets.
I know rationalization. We have a history together. And something about Marcelene Cox’s quote made me suspicious, hinted of some unpleasant truth.
I Googled her name. Up came more quotes.
“A vacation frequently means that the family goes away for a rest, accompanied by a mother who sees that the others get it.”
It was a quote to which many moms could relate, but also one hinting that some bitterness lurked. I read on.
“A sparkling house is a fine thing if the children aren’t robbed of their luster in keeping it that way.”
Another good one! And it was one that could feed right into my rationalizing way of thinking. If a clean house means you could be robbing your child of their luster, what kind of mother would I be if I risked something like that?
I was beginning to wonder if perhaps this Marcelene wasn’t a long-lost rationalizing sister of mine, but I detected a hint of bitterness in her luster quote that set my antennae to twitching. I kept reading.
The next one: “If at first you don’t succeed, blame your parents.”
Bingo.  The words of a person looking to point the finger away from their self.
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Perhaps Marcelene had her tongue firmly in cheek when she came up with that last one, but for me, it tainted them all.
          Â
Yes, the failings of a parent can badly damage a child, but at some point, the child has a responsibility to try anyway. Accepting that they can never be better that what their parents think of them or that they can blame their parents if they don’t succeed isn’t rationalization. It’s a cop out.
For the second time that day, I wadded the calendar page and tossed it in the trash. I already had a different page in my collection that better framed how I feel.
“A man may fall many times, but he won’t be a failure until he says someone pushed him.” (Elmer Letterman)Â
May 6th, 2008 at 12:44 am
[…] Karin Fuller wrote an interesting post today on Don’t quote meHere’s a quick excerptDon’t quote me May 5th, 2008 by karin Every year for Christmas, Mom gets me a new calendar. For years, she chose Far Side calendars, then Gary Larson retired and she had to find a new theme. Knowing my love for sayings (she’s the one who started me collecting them in the first place), it seemed natural for her to choose a Quote of the Day. Although I’ve run across several keepers so far, one recent quote hit me wrong, prompting me to tear off the page, wad it up, and toss it in the trash. A […]
May 9th, 2008 at 10:09 am
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May 11th, 2008 at 11:30 am
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