Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.
Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/507207
May 6-12, 2015 UCW 5 WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM THIS WEEK WITH MARGARET MARGARET DICKSON, Contributing Writer, COMMENTS? Editor@upandcom- ingweekly.com.. 910.484.6200. Serving Fayetteville Over 50 Years! 484-0261 1304 Morganton Rd. Mon-Sat: 6am-10pm Sun: 7am-2:30pm Come and see us for lunch! $11.99 Banquet rooms available up to 100 guests Contest&RequestLine: 910-764-1073 www.christian107.com KeepingtheMainThing...theMainThing. visitusonline FocusontheFamily 20Countdown Magazine Adventures in Odyssey The question of to-spank-or-not-to-spank has been around as long as there have been parents and children. Generally speaking, the Dicksons fell into the not-to-spank camp when dealing with errant Precious Jewels. We were not entirely pure; however, and I confess to losing my temper more than once. I remember routinely whacking a plastic spatula on the kitchen counter. It made a loud crack and got everyone's attention, but it also implied that it could smack someone's behind as easily as a counter. I also remember one rainy afternoon with a squalling toddler who did not want to nap. So frazzled a mother was I, that I plopped him in his crib so hard the child actually bounced. That bounce unnerved me so thoroughly that I had to simply shut the bedroom door and lie down myself. Neither Dickson parent, at least to my knowledge, ever "lost it" as dramatically as Toya Graham of Baltimore did when she saw her 16-year-old son wearing a mask and a hoodie preparing to toss a rock during a rapidly escalating confrontation between protestors and police. Unless you have been in some remote corner of the world without CNN — if such a spot actually exists–you have seen the video. Graham, a single, unemployed and slightly plump mother of six, chased down and caught her tall, lanky son, cursing at him, pummeling him with her fists and ultimately dragging him home with her. I would like to have been a fly on the wall for that conversation. Much to her surprise, her 15 minutes of fame are continuing. She is, in fact, a national sensation, with some referring to her as "mother of the year." It is absolutely clear to me that Graham loves her adolescent son and that she feared for his safety in that highly charged situation. Truth be told, I think most mothers have a touch of Toya Graham in us as well. We will do what it takes to protect our babies, just as she was doing. I have even told the Precious Jewels that it is my responsibility to embarrass them occasionally in preparation for their potential parenthood. While Graham's apparently instinctive and spontaneous response to seeing her son as rock-wielding protestor is being celebrated, and with respect to cultural differences, there is something unsettling about a mother cursing and beating her son for the entire world to see. In interviews following the incident, the now-chastened young man has said he understands his mother's point and will behave differently going forward, so it sounds like Graham's disciplinary tactics have made a significant impression or at least got his attention. I hope so, but there are other, less violent parental corrections as well. David Brooks, a New York Times opinion columnist has a new book, The Road to Character. In it he explores what he calls "resume virtues" and "eulogy virtues," which are Brooks' shorthand for the way we would like to think of ourselves and the way others actually see us. The first involves ambition, calculation and, at heart, self-preservation, and the latter, as Brooks himself puts it, qualities "that get talked about at your funeral, the ones that exist at the core of your being — whether you are kind, brave, honest or faithful, what kind of relationships you formed." In what sounds like an old- fashioned commencement address or even a Sunday school lesson, Brooks talks about the qualities that make up strong character, his eulogy virtues. He does so by looking at individuals whose character he admires: among them labor activist Francis Perkins, Civil Rights leader Bayard Rustin, World War II General and later President Dwight D. Eisenhower and St. Augustine. In them and others, he sees virtues of logic and self-discipline, self- restraint and giving to a cause larger and outside oneself. These and other such qualities are in contrast to what Brooks sees as the current culture of "Big Me," which stresses personal fulfillment and external success over concern for the greater good, humility, introspection and moral depth. Rightly or wrongly, I associate Brooks' eulogy virtues with people who have come before me, with people of my parents' and grandparents' generations. There are, of course, many of my contemporaries who embody such qualities, but there are also plenty of us today who look first for the good of Number One. Everyone else comes in second. We can cheer Toya Graham or disagree with her tactics, but she was looking out for her son. She wanted him, first of all, to be safe in an inherently dangerous situation, and she wanted to set him on the right track. I am confident Graham's fierce mothering will be front and center in her eulogy when that time comes. To Be Rather Than to Seem by MARGARET DICKSON