What, me Role Model?
"I'm a role model."
The jarring thought descended one day as I overheard my seven year old parrot one of my own prejudices. "Cats in the Cradle"-like, I realized my boy was just like me, yeah, my boy was just like me.
Putting it on his business card was a big step of faith. He began doing it in an era of what I think of as "tacit Christianity" in buttoned down corporate American culture; a time when there may have been a presumption of mainline church attendance, but perhaps the daily demonstration in a corporate setting was limited to the simple wearing of a saints medal under the shirt or a cross on the lapel. I've always liked that he put it out there because he believed it was important.
The Leave No Trace Pledge (Boy Scouts of America)
I promise to apply the Leave No Trace frontcountry principles wherever I go:
The jarring thought descended one day as I overheard my seven year old parrot one of my own prejudices. "Cats in the Cradle"-like, I realized my boy was just like me, yeah, my boy was just like me.
Becoming a role model was not actually a job I had pursued. Sure, I want to be a good dad, and for grown-ups of a Certain Age, being a dad/role model still means emulating Ward Cleaver (or maybe Mike Brady, but whoa, that hair!) For another age, probably Cliff Huxtable, or that guy on the show I never watched with the twins who grew up to be creepy skinny People-magazine fixtures. In other words, a guy in a cardigan. But cardigans drape all bunchy, and I'm not very comfortable in them. And really, as Alfred E. Newman would say, "What, me? Role model?"
I'm not talking about the celebrity role modelling, the daily freak show manufactured by Us magazine, Access Hollywood, and the entire true-confessional talk show genre. Not even the sports hero role models, who claim, "I'm not here to be anybody's role model; I'm just here to play the game." Nope. The day you trade on your name for a soda endorsement, you have invited others to be like you and are a de facto role model.
No. We're talking about being daily life role models. The continuum stretches from quietly doing the right thing unnoticed, to glowing with the joy at living true to principles, on through to evangelism and mentoring. Although in today's mediated realm, staking out a position of outrage or self-victimization has largely replaced genuine evangelism as a means of role modelling.
Why assume the role at all? Primarily, of course, it's for the children. As Miss Manners reminds us, you can always dress down when you know better, but you can never fake good manners upward. This is why friends were always surprised when we would address our own children at six months old with a "please" and a "thank you." The only way little ones can internalize manners is if they are required every time, without fail. The result: the charming spectacle of our four year old daughter asking for five more minutes of morning sleep. Barely conscious, she reflexively uses perfect manners to mumble, "Please, go."
Not that there isn't pleasure in treating oneself to a dose of self-satisfied goody-two-shoesism. This feeling is evoked when driving extra-slow through a school zone and silently berating drivers passing on the right. (Note to drivers eastbound on 45th Street past Wilson Elementary: you can't beat the light at 30th Ave. by speeding through the school zone--unless you're going about sixty mph. Go fifteen and it will obligingly turn green as you approach. There. Said it.)
To claim role modeldom is to invite scorn ("how dare you preach to me"!) or a snide assessment of your own failure to live up to your claims ("if you're such a careful driver, why did you give that stop sign a Kenosha Roll...?") Recognizing mere human fallibility, I try not to let that matter. Worse is to fail to live up to your own models; because if you are to be one yourself, you must emulate good examples.
To claim role modeldom is to invite scorn ("how dare you preach to me"!) or a snide assessment of your own failure to live up to your claims ("if you're such a careful driver, why did you give that stop sign a Kenosha Roll...?") Recognizing mere human fallibility, I try not to let that matter. Worse is to fail to live up to your own models; because if you are to be one yourself, you must emulate good examples.
My dad of course qualifies in myriad ways, including being staunch in his faith. I've always admired his business cards, which have this inscription on the reverse:
This is the beginning of a new day. God has given me this day to use as I will. I can waste it or use it for good. What I do today is important, because I'm exchanging a day of my life for it. When tomorrow comes, this day will be gone forever, leaving in its place something I have traded for it. I want it to be gain, not loss; good, not evil; success, not failure; in order that I shall not regret the price I paid for it.
Putting it on his business card was a big step of faith. He began doing it in an era of what I think of as "tacit Christianity" in buttoned down corporate American culture; a time when there may have been a presumption of mainline church attendance, but perhaps the daily demonstration in a corporate setting was limited to the simple wearing of a saints medal under the shirt or a cross on the lapel. I've always liked that he put it out there because he believed it was important.
Now, even speaking as a person of faith, you can make a pretty good case that atheists or non-Christians could still adopt this motto and lead a healthy life. It's part of my Role Model Six-Pack: dad's motto, the AA Serenity Prayer, the Prayer of Saint Francis of Assisi, the Boy Scout Wilderness Pledge, the Golden Rule, and one last lesson from a role model. If I did nothing else positively virtuous to guide my children, I owe it to them to exercise daily the ultimate minimum pragmatic reputation saver: "Never go any place you'd be ashamed to die at, or do anything you'd be ashamed to die doing."
What, me?
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The Role Model Six-Pack
The Leave No Trace Pledge (Boy Scouts of America)
I promise to apply the Leave No Trace frontcountry principles wherever I go:
- Stay on the trail.
- Trash my trash.
- Curb my critter.
- Leave it better than I find it.
- Respect other visitors
- Keep it safe.
My dad's pledge
This is the beginning of a new day. God has given me this day to use as I will. I can waste it or use it for good. What I do today is important, because I'm exchanging a day of my life for it. When tomorrow comes, this day will be gone forever, leaving in its place something I have traded for it. I want it to be gain, not loss; good, not evil; success, not failure; in order that I shall not regret the price I paid for it.
This is the beginning of a new day. God has given me this day to use as I will. I can waste it or use it for good. What I do today is important, because I'm exchanging a day of my life for it. When tomorrow comes, this day will be gone forever, leaving in its place something I have traded for it. I want it to be gain, not loss; good, not evil; success, not failure; in order that I shall not regret the price I paid for it.
Prayer of Saint Francis of Assisi
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury,pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury,pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen
AAA Serenity Prayer
"God grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change,
courage to change the things we can,
and wisdom to know the difference."
"God grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change,
courage to change the things we can,
and wisdom to know the difference."