The Soapbox My Parents Taught Me

The Matousek Clan circa 1982

Someone sent me a diatribe allegedly written by Jay Leno about the way Americans need to be more grateful for what they have and stop paying attention to media. “Shut off the TV, burn Newsweek, and use the New York Times for the bottom of your bird cage,” it said. “We are among the most blessed people on Earth and should thank God several times a day, or at least be thankful and appreciative."

And the question I have to ask is: If I am grateful for my own life, does that mean I shouldn’t care about others who are less fortunate?

I remember when Kelly and Brian were planning to have children and Kelly told me that one of the reasons they knew they wanted to have kids was because the world needed more responsible people, more people who would take care of others. (She doesn’t remember this conversation, so perhaps I made it up a decade and a half ago when their first child was born.) Kelly and Brian looked at the world and knew they wanted to help raise the next generation that would continue to do good work and be compassionate and responsible and work for change in our world.

I have been thinking about this a lot as the 4^th of July comes and I remember the last days I spent with my father. I am so grateful for the time I had with him and the things he taught me. And I have been thinking about what things that my parents have taught me I will pass on to my own son. Compassion. Integrity. Responsibility. Courage. Nourishment of the Soul. Knowledge.

And because all of that is just under the surface of the emotions of what I’m feeling about the anniversary of my father’s death, I couldn’t help but get angry about this email that told me to throw away my Newsweek and stop paying attention.

I am very, very grateful for everything that I have. I appreciate so much about my life and understand how incredibly lucky I am to live where I live. But that doesn't mean I don't want things to change. That doesn't mean I don't want things to be better. Since the beginning of time the major positive changes we've seen in our world were because there were people who said, "We can do this better. We can do this differently." Our country exists because there were people who left Europe knowing they were willing to risk a lot for a better way of life. People who looked at things and said, "I am happy with MY life but I want things to be better for others” are responsible for the end of slavery and the end of the Holocaust.

I read Newsweek cover to cover every week. Not because I am looking for reasons to be unhappy about my life, but because I want to be informed about what is going on in the world. I want to look at the good, the bad and the ugly. I want to know about the genocide going on in Darfur and the millions of American children living in poverty and the millions of American citizens who have to choose between putting food on their table and paying for their medication because they have little or no health care coverage. I want to know about people who are treated with hate because of the color of their skin or their income level or their country of origin or their sexual orientation. I want to know about people around the world living in conditions so much worse than my own so I can understand and help to put people in power who want to do something about the working conditions in China, the living conditions in North Korea, the oppression of women in Afghanistan. I read Newsweek cover-to-cover every week because I want to look at those that have less than me and say "What can we do? How can we change this? How can we make this better?" The alternative is to turn and look away and say "Hey, I'm happy. I have everything I need. Who cares about the rest of the world?"

By and large the media is NOT a negative media. It is a media that wants us to see what is going on in our world, to reveal the truth, to not look away because our own lives are good. Jesus Christ wouldn't ignore the poor and the weak and the suffering of the world, and neither should we.

Both of my parents have taught me by example to be grateful for what I have (when we whined about wanting something others had Dad would say, “Don’t be a me-tooer), to help those who are less fortunate (as kids we had penpals in third world countries that we sent letters and money to), to give a helping hand to those who need help (we took in friends who were having difficulty and gave money to causes we believed in…Ann and I both put money in the collection plate at Mass every Sunday), to have compassion for people whose circumstances have not been as blessed as our own, to stay informed about what is going on in the world (I was probably only ten years old when my Dad brought me to see Gerald Ford speak at the Brown County Memorial Arena), to be the change I want to see in the world. Every single day I am grateful to have been raised by parents who believed in me and taught me these things at a very young age, and I hope that I will be as good at passing on these messages to my child(ren) as they were. The world is going to keep on changing, and I want to teach my son the tools he needs to change it for the better… as my parents did for me.