To illustrate the folly of praising a fix rather than praising the tools used by the person who gets it right in the first place, I used the analogy of the recovering alcoholic who, with 30 years of sobriety under her belt, is held up so high she overshadows the 30-year-old who has never had a sip of alcohol. The latter lady has also been sober for 30 years. Does she not have the more useful how-to to tell? My fellow commenters speculated that I must know nothing about addiction. Again there was the insistence that those who fix what they break are somehow more newsworthy than those who get it right in the first place.
This kind of reverse thinking and subsequent praise doesn't hold water in prevention campaigns to keep kids off drugs or out of gangs, because it sends the message that knowledge isn't power, staying in school isn't cool, and as long as you fix what you break, it's okay to break it. So why are success stories overlooked instead of being held up as the worthy standard when the content is so specifically useful? I speculate a lot of people would rather read about those who spent years cultivating a miserable failure rather than follow in the footsteps of someone who took the initiative to step outside their comfort zone to meet a need they saw years in advance.
Only one commenter, even as she applauded the article-mom, had the story that should've been told: "Almost eight years ago when we only had three kids (we now have five) we instituted a family rule that only Santa brings toys at Christmas – books, music, puzzles, board games, and movies were okay. We asked that if family felt the need to give a gift at all to give the kids a gift of experience like a day at the zoo or an art class. The grief we got from the grandparents and extended family was extreme and I was even called a few names that I cannot put in a public venue. Some refused to follow the rules and their gifts went to Toys for Tots."
Article comments
1 - Martha
I think your point is well made. Agree also w/ the idea that Americans generally love drama, soap operas, stories of misery, debauchery, falls from grace and the like. They are more interesting than stories of youth who abstain from intercourse, people who are drug-free, and have never been an alcoholic like your example. It's all so hollywood. How less that 10 percent (one percent?) of our nation can influence the rest of the nation always baffles me. I'm uber-sick of tabloid and TV or other media entertaining the ilk of people who've turned their life around or are going straight so that they can keep their kids or whatever. Lindsey Lohan, Courtney Love - there are too many to mention. 20/20 recently made Eminem look like a saint on TV. Oh - he writes his own lyrics - big whoop - they've also been some of the most vile in music history. Don't get it.... whatever makes news I guess.