The Bradys had it right!

Yes, I know I haven't blogged in a while. I promised myself when I started this blogging thing that I would not write unless I felt inspired or something moved me to do so. That kept me from putting pressure on myself and from putting up a post just to be putting something up. Who wants to read that? So what inspired me now? Believe it or not, The Brady Bunch.  Lately the Hallmark Channel has been broadcasting reruns of this iconic 1970's series, and I have been watching. I grew up with the Brady family. They aired for the first time in 1969. I was 6 years old, about the age of Cindy and Bobby, and it went off the air in 1974. I was in the 5th grade. I don't have to tell you that things have changed immensely from 1969 until now, especially in the way that kids and parents interact and kids in general. WARNING!! This may turn into a back in my day post. Yesterday an episode aired that really got me to thinking. Greg, the oldest of the Brady Boys, was 15 years old and looking to get an after school job to save for a car to be able to buy when he turned 16. Okay, let's stop right here. Greg didn't go to his parents asking for a car or the money to buy a car. Better yet, he wasn't expecting to be handed a car as reward for the miraculous feat of turning 16. He was asking his parents if he could get a job to SAVE money to purchase a car himself. I know! Crazy, right? Wait! There's more! He gets a job at his father's architectural firm cleaning up and making deliveries. He's asked to make an important delivery of architectural blueprints. On the way he stops at a news stand to purchase the latest car trader magazine. While there the blueprints slip out of the tube carrying them and onto the street unbeknownst to Greg. He arrives home late to greet his parents with the bad news. He is late, by the way, because he has ridden everywhere on his bike looking for the lost documents. When he tells his parents the news, he is truly remorseful. Carol, his mother, asks if he stopped anywhere. He says no at first, but then remembers the news stand. He stands there with the folded magazine tucked in his belt. Mike, his father, reaches for the magazine and says, "For this." Greg apologizes for losing the blueprints to which Mike replies in a calm but disappointed voice, waving the magazine, "But you didn't lose this, did you?" I turned to my 17 year old daughter, who was watching with me, and said, "That's exactly like something I would say." This was no surprise to her because she was raised in the "Brady" fashion. For all of the sitcom's cheesy story lines and "what did you learn from this?" The six children were taught to be respectful, to share, be considerate of others, to be honest and selfless, and what's wrong with that? I started thinking that I cannot remember hardly any episodes where someone was being bratty, and if they were, they learned their lesson by the end of the episode. What happened? Why are children allowed today to behave, as my grandmother would say, "like they were raised in a barn?" What happened to simply expecting children to behave? Call me crazy, but I think the world would be a much better place if we took a parenting lesson from Mike and Carol