Cop Out: Disrespecting Responsibility

How do we teach our children responsibility in a world that does not respect responsibility?

What does it mean to be responsible? According to my favorite dictionary, a 1919 edition of Webster's New International Dictionary, responsible is defined as: (4) able to respond or answer for one's conduct or obligations. While there are many definitions, they all come back to this basic one.

Our laws decide at what point in life each person becomes "responsible". When we are born, of course, our parents are determined to be responsible for us. Throughout our childhood, little episodes of responsibility are placed on us to prepare us for life as adults who will then become responsible for our own actions or inactions. This includes things like schoolwork, cleaning our rooms, learning to do chores in our homes, treating others well, all preparations for the future. By law a person becomes an "adult" when they have reached the age of eighteen. When this magic age occurs, we are able to move away from our families if we desire, join the military, and marry. I would then translate being an adult to being "responsible for our own conduct".

In America we hold back one part of responsibility until the age of twenty one. While we engage in every other avenue of being adults, we can not legally drink strong spirits (alcohol). It is the final step towards complete responsibility for ourselves. Once we are of legal drinking age, we are then considered to be old enough to respond or answer for our conduct. Or I should say...this is the way it used to be.

There was a great idiom during the 60's, 70's, and even 80's - "Cop out". To cop out was to lay blame elsewhere, to place the responsibility for your actions, thoughts, or problems on some ambiguous person/thing/fate. To "cop out" was to find a scapegoat (another great word!) and to shift all away from yourself. "That's a cop out and you know it" was regularly heard. So....how did we end up as we now are? Living in a society that is nothing but one big, fat, never ending....COP OUT?

If a person over the age of consent makes a conscious choice to smoke cigarettes, regardless of all the public warnings that say "THIS IS BAD FOR YOU" - then how can we as a society embrace lawsuits against the tobacco companies? Is this not a cop out? When a man/woman over the age of twenty one, goes to a bar and proceeds to drink well past the warning signs most people get (you know, the part where you become dizzy, and slurred, and stumble on the way to the bathroom) - then this same person climbs into a car and kills themselves or others - why do we immediately want to know where, when, how, they drank and the lawyers are already drawing up the lawsuit papers to serve on the bar owner? We now place the blame on the bar and the employees of the bar - taking the responsibility for two bad choices (a) over drinking; (b) driving while being intoxicated - away from the individual. If we are no longer held responsible then why can a two year old not drink? Did we not decide that by being twenty one the person is responsible and old enough to make responsible decisions? Some may argue it is actually "shared responsibility" but the reality is the person who drank made their choice. The same goes with weapons being used in crimes, how can we hold the weapon manufacturer responsible? Did they pull the trigger or stab with the knife? Millions of humans in our country own weapons and literally everythingcan become a weapon...yet only certain individuals use weapons to commit crimes. Obviously, the failure is in the person, not those who made the weapon.

We spend more time in our society looking for answers and places to lay "blame" than we do in reasonable thought. When even the person who committed an act is not looking for someone else to blame...others around them will. We can blame sugar for an addicts overuse and resulting illness, we can sue fast food restaurants for making us obese (I saw that invisible arm they have shoveling the food into peoples mouths!). We can blame objects for the misuse by a human hand, we can blame others for every deed we commit - but where do we draw a line? Do we remove and destroy everything on the planet to keep us "safe" from all the big bad evils?

The reality of our "cop out" society is it all comes down to money, greed, indulgence and self-indulgence. Money can never replace another human. Yet someone will always convince us a lawsuit is not to "replace" our loved one, it is to "punish" those who put these horrible "weapons" out into the world, it is to make a "statement" - and this someone is usually a lawyer who will be making a sizable profit off your misery. Lawsuits have become so common I think they must be listed as a normal "source of income". People do not understand how these lawsuits have affected each and every one of us, both in our quality of life and our wallets.

I understand there are moments when a company or business, parent, or employee neglected to be "responsible" in their actions. If an adult provides an underage person with adult devices then yes, the adult should answer for this. If a company is spilling toxins into the earth without the knowledge of others...then yes they too should be held responsible. But we have opened up the door to make individuals NEVER accept responsibility for their own involvement.

Many of us have dealt with tragedy in our life. And often one of the processes of surviving is to look for answers, to find closure, to find someone or something to scream at....to blame. Often, we mistake revenge for justice. Many of us have lived through neglect, abuse, and have even been victims of crime. To deny these things would be unhealthy. But to use them as an excuse for any bad behavior you perpetrate - is nothing more than a cop out. As the old saying goes "two wrongs don't make a right".

And yes, if someone we love is taken from us by another human's bad choices, it is painful and seems so needless. While we can never get a loved one back through hatred, revenge, or money, if blame must be placed then place it wholly on the person who took the drink, drove the car, pulled the trigger, or smoked the cigarette. Show responsibility by making only the one committing the offense...responsible. Then, we can call it justice. Unfortunately, "justice" has become a Hollywood style debacle and a commodity like everything else in our society. Putting a price tag on justice turns it into something else. It belittles the importance of those we have lost or who have been hurt. The only way you can keep the person you lost in your life is through memories and by giving them dignity in their passing. Why turn their very existence into nothing more than a Cop Out and a bank balance?

The only way we as a society can become more responsible is to give our children an example. Teach them to be responsible for their actions and to stand up with honor and dignity when they "mess up". Don't make excuses for them even when the need to protect them overcomes you. Sometimes, protecting means doing what is right for their development as a human. Admit to them when you mess up as this teaches them everyonemakes mistakes, it is how you accept responsibility for your mistakes that matters. In my family, the deed itself is not as punishable as lying about it or blaming others.

Through the years I have taken juveniles out of lock up settings and the first step I took was to interview each child prior to deciding if they would leave with me to be integrated back into their community. A young woman came up to me one day in the store and asked if I remembered her, which I did. She told me she had been in and out of lock up for several years. She had one question for me, "Why didn't you take me?" I told her it was very simple. The first thing I would ask in an interview was "Why are you here?"

If the first response of the child was to start blaming others, I walked from the room. This always told me they were not yet ready to be back in the community. The proper answer for me was "I messed up". So simple, so easy; "I MESSED UP".

I say this daily. The world has not ended, I have not burnt up into little cinders, and no evil wind has blown me away. We are human. We make mistakes. We are never ever perfect. We create the world immediately around us with our actions, good or bad. Life is NOT a Cop Out. It is a series of choices. And learning to live with the choices we make. I have a couple times in my life (long ago!) hugged the toilet in drunken agony. My litany each time was always the same "Oh God why did I drink so much!" never "Oh God, why did they force me to drink so much!" - knowing even in my drunken stupor that I messed up! Needless to say, after a couple times I never made this mistake again!

Part of raising a child is to teach them all actions have consequences, good or bad. They will not learn this if we give them excuses for every behavior. No matter what our feelings are or what has been done to us - we do not have the right to use those feelings or experiences to cause harm to others. Personally, I find it interesting the very people who grew up in the days of the "cop out" expression - are the very same people who now create and give others the rights to COP OUT! Me.... I am still waiting for Bill Clinton to just admit he smoked pot, inhaled, and loved every second of it!

Sources:
Websters New International Dictionary, 1919