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Friday, February 11, 2011

The Cowboy Code...for our Daughters

I'm not usually one to gloat, and hopefully none of you faithful readers will think me so. Hopefully you'll just think I'm accurate. If anyone saw Snooki on Letterman last night http://www.tvsquad.com/2011/02/11/letterman-asks-snooki-an-alcoholic-video/ I think you'll agree that she was an appropriate member of the Women We Don't Want Our Daughters to be Like list. Additionally, the latest news about Lindsay Lohan http://www.tmz.com/2011/02/09/lindsay-lohan-custody-judge-keith-schwartz-shawn-chapman-holly/ makes her look like a pretty good selection for the list as well.

Which leads me to what's on my mind today. I will, in an average day, check out at least a dozen news sites, both on the net and in paper. It's part of my routine and it's part of my DNA. I think part of it has to do with the fact that I was a journalism major in college, and the other part is that I've always been interested in what other people write and how they write it.

So this morning I came across an article, on line, that makes me think there's a connection to why we even have the unfortunate circumstance of a Snooki or a Lindsay Lohan.

I'm not going to review the whole article for you, if you're interested you can check it out for yourself. http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2011/02/10/cowboy-code-frivolous/print The crux of the article is the fact that the Montana State Senate passed a bill the other day stating that it would adopt The Code of the West from the book "Cowboy Ethics" and make it the official Montana Code. The writer of the article, Patrick Dorinson, believes that there's a shortage of ethics and values in the USA, and that it wasn't a bad thing for the Montana Senate to pass this bill.

Dorinson goes further in his discussion of ethics and values, and went back to a study done by Rutgers University in 2002 that found that cheating in schools by our young people is a much greater trend than a parent or teacher might want to admit. But what struck me about that was not so much that cheating exists. I mean, who among us didn't, at least once, look over the shoulder of the smartest girl in third grade to see if you got the math problem correct?

There is a quote from a student in that study that pretty much sums up why we have Snooki, Lindsay Lohan and ridiculous shows like American Idol and that other stupid show where people go to compete to see who gets kicked off the island. I don't watch it so I don't know what it's called. I just know it's there.

The kid said, and I quote (to avoid any plagiarism claims) "I actually think cheating is good. A person who has an entirely honest life can't succeed these days."

Wow! Consider that this was spoken in 2001 or 2002, so right now this kid is probably your local mayor or state senator.

So anyway, I guess that got me to wondering what we're teaching our daughters about life. It's not something we give conscious thought to as we go through our daily routine. Maybe we hope that our daughters (and sons) will learn a lot of important things by observing what we do. I've always told my kids that I put a lot more stock in what someone does as opposed to what they say. So, at least I hope, that my kids pick up the good stuff that I do, and maybe don't always listen to the stuff that falls out from between my lips. I said in my last post that I sometimes go to bed at night wishing I could take back something stupid I may have said.

I think if you go read the article about the Cowboy Code, you'll think of some things for yourself. One of the negative lessons that our daughters learn from Snooki, Lindsay Lohan, and others of that ilk, is that MONEY is the most important thing in life.

While I admit that money is important and I would not turn down the opportunity for my next book to be a bestseller, I do adhere to a favorite saying by my second favorite Cowboy actor, Robert Duvall. In the movie "Broken Trail" he and his nephew are driving a heard of horses to Montana. There's a scene where they are discussing a variety of things, and his nephew (played by Thomas Haden Church) talks of money and riches. Duvall's reply is "Never judge your wealth by how much money you have."

P.S. Don't forget to tell your daughter that you love her.

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