Kill the Messenger

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by Carri Anne Yager

Babies don’t smoke.  And their parents have to bring them in public at least sometimes.  So I guess things are better now that smoking is not allowed in most public places.  My own life is certainly easier as a result of not having to inhale second-hand smoke while I am trying to eat in a restaurant, for example.  But sometimes I wonder about the side effects of the new squeaky clean campaign… When children are taught to avoid cigarettes because they are “bad,” do they also believe that people who smoke them are bad?  What if Grandma and Grandpa smoke?  Are they bad?  Grandma and Grandpa probably popped their kids on the fanny once or twice, too.  Are they bad? Being of a transitional generation, I find it hard to accept that my authority as a parent is under constant public surveillance and scrutiny.  I hate to say when I was a kid, but when I was a kid, my parents both smoked.  And if I didn’t like getting popped on the fanny, it was my problem.  Furthermore, I do not think my parents are evil.

I am no advocate of child abuse, health abuse, or bringing back the mythologized ways of old, but I am an advocate of education.  Why bother with all this intervention in order to make the world a better place when it’s at least as hateful as ever?  Why replace one form of tyranny with another? Why not encourage the American public not to merely reject human beings, but to look beyond the symptomatic behavior or “bad habits” of people who commit these sins against our popular beliefs of the day?  I can’t help but to think that it’s at least as ignorant to counsel ourselves against having sympathy for So And So who never bothered to exercise and, therefore, got what she deserved when her health took a bad turn.  At the end of a nine hour shift, So and So always went home and made sure her children got a good meal, clean laundry and a story at bedtime.  Still, she always wanted to do more, and do better, than what she had done all day. I know, I know…  She needed advice in time management.  There are always enough hours in the day for good, clean hard-working people who try.  And there is always an alternative, and there is always a solution, and we shouldn’t “let” these problems happen to us.  And when we show compassion for people who have problems, we “enable” them (I love that one).  We don’t have to feel sympathy for anyone, because God helps those who help themselves.  If someone is suffering, it must always be because she has done nothing about her problems.  If we help to relieve someone’s burden, we might interfere with their experience of punishment, which is important to learning a lesson… that’s why they say we shouldn’t spank…