Американский филиал SAY7. Разговоры обо всём (по-русски)

Девченки, меня очень тронула статья одного местного доктора в локал ньюс:

Цитата:

Martin Luther King dreamed that men would be judged "not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character." Today, America has an African-American president. Many might suppose that Dr. King would be proud of how far we have come. Or would he? The ongoing subprime mortgage crisis, which began in 2007, was the result of greed on the part of the bankers selling mortgages and consumers buying houses they could not afford. Lane Kiffin was hired as head football coach by the University of Tennessee, but left Knoxville for a job at Southern Cal after only 14 months at UT, betraying not only Tennessee fans but also David Reaves, his own brother-in-law and an assistant coach on the Tennessee staff. Reaves found out about Kiffin's departure the morning after he left. John Edwards had the audacity to run for president while having an affair with a campaign filmmaker and fathering a child with her, while his wife was dying of metastatic breast cancer. He then paid staffer Andy Young to say that the child was Young's. What has happened to us? In the 1987 film "Wall Street," Michael Douglas's character Gordon Gekko spouted the mantra that "greed is good." It is a phrase that we seem to have taken to heart as a nation. The media have barraged us with ads that tell us that we have to have the latest big-screen TV or we're somehow just not good enough. We don't need any of these things. It's time we got back to basic values. Our focus needs to be on doing what is right, not what is easiest. Pop psychologists say that there is no abstract right and wrong. That's horse hockey. Our collective understanding of the difference between right and wrong is readily apparent if one goes to see one of the now-popular superhero films. Does anyone doubt that Superman is good, or that Lex Luthor is evil? It's just that most people choose not to act honorably unless they are being monitored. So how can we fix this problem? We need to start by teaching our children the basics of right and wrong. We need to stop making excuses for childhood bad behavior. We need to correct the parental tendency in today's society to protect children from failure so that we do not damage their fragile little egos. We do too much for them. We let them play on teams where "everyone's a winner" and each kid gets a trophy, for example. Our children then grow up feeling that the world owes them something because, after all, they are "special." This is ridiculous. I propose that we begin a national, grass-roots initiative to mold our young people into people of good character. There are a few simple things parents can do: - Children should not be coddled. Kids need to understand that things don't always work out the way they'd like them to. Crises help us to develop resilience. - Children should not be spoiled. Our children don't need every toy, every gadget or every video game. It's okay to say "no" once in a while. - Children need to be taught that doing things for the common good is always better than doing things for one's self-benefit. Team sports, for example, can be useful - just as long as the child and the parent understand that every child is not a superstar. Parents should encourage their children to work harder to earn more playing time instead of expecting it as a birthright. - The Golden Rule is still applicable in today's society. Children should be encouraged to do what is right in all cases - even when no one else is watching. - Hard work is a virtue. The intrinsic value of work needs to be emphasized and appreciated. I'd rather have a hard-working honest person of average intelligence working for me than a lazy genius any day of the week. Our greatest leaders were unselfish men who understood honesty and altruism. We now find ourselves in a time of transition, beset as much by internal cultural rot as we are by any external force. It's time we made character education a part of our national parental curriculum. We need to teach our children to do what is right all the time, not just when people are watching them. Because that's what character is. And character is important. Just ask the University of Tennessee. Mark E. Murphy, M.D., is a Savannah physician.

По-моему лучше и не скажешь. Я лично подпишусь под каждым словом в этой статье. Именно показушность "хорошего" поведения (боязнь потерять лицо) и "смещенные" ценности местной системы воспитания пока удерживают меня от принятия окончательного решения по киндер-вопросу...