What's in a Word?

INTEGRITY.  I was substitute teaching in a high school English classroom last week when a student asked me the meaning of integrity.  The dictionary discusses adherence to moral and ethical principles.  That's nice. It also mentions honesty, virtue and the soundness of moral character.  I don't believe those definitions hit the mark.  They describe attributes of the person of integrity.  I believe the answer I gave when asked is better (How's that for arrogance?):  "Integrity is doing the right thing even when nobody's looking."

Wouldn't it be nice if that was everybody's standard?  Sadly, it's not.  We have become such a sly people, such a sneaky lot.  I hate to be the one (of a zillion) harping on television, but I do feel tv is a culprit.  As far back as the eighties, television has seen young characters emerge who are smarter than their parents, get over on adults, and justify their actions because they are, after all, dealing with the less hip.  At first, the parents are clueless, then they figure out they've been duped.  At that point, many of us would put our kids in their place (i.e., take the iPod, ground them from the phone, make them write sentences, whatever).  The tv parents, instead, listen intently as their children explain to them just what's wrong with their archaic thinking.  The closing credits scroll past before a backdrop of sappy, smiling parents sitting on a couch cuddling and talking about how wise and wonderful their children are.  But the children who were influenced by those early sit-coms are not the same ones who are children today.  No!  They are the parents and grandparents who grew up thinking children need to be given equal voice in decision making. 

What has happened is that our children have become empowered.  They are raised to believe they are smarter than (or, at the very least, equal to) the parents and teachers in their lives.  The arrogance that reared its ugly head between 18 and 22, now shows up in elementary school for some children.  This behavior is wrong.  Parents are not supposed to abdicate authority.  It ruins the kids.  They never have to become wise because what they feel is always right.  THEREFORE, there is no need for integrity because there is no such thing as the right thing.  Everything is relative to their desires.  How do we instill integrity in a system that does not acknowledge moral absolutes?

Projected out, this gets ugly.  We need to wise up and start reigning our kids in.  All of us--me included.