1 00:00:00,300 --> 00:00:04,860 I’m always telling my daughters stories from when I was a kid. By comparison, 2 00:00:04,870 --> 00:00:10,180 the world of my youth was rougher and meaner than the world that kids grow up in today. 3 00:00:10,180 --> 00:00:15,019 So, here’s my question: Did this rougher and meaner world better prepare me to be a 4 00:00:15,019 --> 00:00:20,139 well-adjusted, happy adult? I say yes. 5 00:00:20,140 --> 00:00:25,480 When I was a kid, you could say we were less sensitive about a lot of things. I mean, 6 00:00:25,480 --> 00:00:32,079 just look at the commercials we watched. We had The Frito Bandito, the cartoon spokesman for 7 00:00:32,079 --> 00:00:40,140 Fritos. He was a three and a half foot tall Mexican thief! Can you imagine pitching that 8 00:00:40,140 --> 00:00:42,460 at an ad agency today? 9 00:00:42,460 --> 00:00:48,820 “OK…The Frito Bandito? Alright Phil, you don’t work here anymore. Yeah, you gotta 10 00:00:48,829 --> 00:00:51,689 go clear out your desk right now.” 11 00:00:51,689 --> 00:00:57,900 Some were violent. Hawaiian Punch? Every commercial was the same. A cartoon Hawaiian character 12 00:00:57,909 --> 00:01:03,260 walks up to an unsuspecting cartoon tourist and says, “Hey -- how about a nice Hawaiian Punch?!” 13 00:01:03,260 --> 00:01:08,440 “Sure!” says the tourist, which gets him punched directly in the face. 14 00:01:08,440 --> 00:01:11,480 We all thought that was hilarious. 15 00:01:11,480 --> 00:01:17,760 Kids had to be tougher then, too. An occasional playground fight was expected. And as for teasing? 16 00:01:17,760 --> 00:01:22,060 My mom had a remedy for that. “Sticks and stones may break my bones 17 00:01:22,060 --> 00:01:24,260 but names will never hurt me.” 18 00:01:24,260 --> 00:01:29,120 She used to say that all the time, one of the seemingly endless adages she had at her 19 00:01:29,120 --> 00:01:35,130 disposal to deal with any of life’s problems. But I think long and hard about the practical 20 00:01:35,130 --> 00:01:37,900 applications that statement had on my life. 21 00:01:37,900 --> 00:01:42,900 “That’s true,” I thought, “if someone punches you in the chest it hurts no matter what, 22 00:01:42,900 --> 00:01:48,100 but with words, it all depends on how you think about it.” You could actually 23 00:01:48,100 --> 00:01:53,180 choose whether or not to be hurt! You can’t choose whether or not a punch hurts. 24 00:01:53,180 --> 00:01:58,400 But you can choose whether or not words hurt. That was huge. 25 00:01:58,400 --> 00:02:03,160 Even though it had been repeated ad nauseam for generations, “Sticks and Stones” really 26 00:02:03,160 --> 00:02:08,090 was a powerful bit of philosophy to a kid. That’s one of the great things about being 27 00:02:08,090 --> 00:02:15,380 a parent -- you can spout clichés til the cows come home and yet, to your child, it’s all new. 28 00:02:15,380 --> 00:02:18,580 You come off as one of the great thinkers in Western Culture. 29 00:02:18,580 --> 00:02:23,439 But does anyone really say “Sticks and Stones” anymore? I doubt there is a grammar school 30 00:02:23,439 --> 00:02:27,790 teacher today who is even allowed to utter that phrase. They’re much more likely to 31 00:02:27,790 --> 00:02:34,260 warn against the ever present danger of “hate speech” or “triggers” or hurting people’s feelings. 32 00:02:34,260 --> 00:02:39,120 This is done in the name of teaching children to respect each other. It begins 33 00:02:39,120 --> 00:02:44,380 innocently enough by trying to eradicate teasing, but it continues into middle and high school, 34 00:02:44,380 --> 00:02:50,480 where there’s no greater sin than offending someone’s personal or cultural sensitivity. 35 00:02:50,480 --> 00:02:55,520 We’ve seen what used to be called “Great Books” banned because of fear of offending. 36 00:02:55,520 --> 00:03:00,920 That would not have even occurred to us years ago! Of course, how could the physical abuse 37 00:03:00,930 --> 00:03:05,299 in The Great Gatsby harm us in high school when we spent our childhood watching Jerry 38 00:03:05,299 --> 00:03:10,719 the mouse staple gun Tom the Cat’s tongue to the wall? How could reading an honest depiction 39 00:03:10,719 --> 00:03:16,099 of racial attitudes in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn harm us when we sang “Ai yi yi yi!” 40 00:03:16,099 --> 00:03:22,590 along with the Frito Bandito, or “Fat kids, skinny kids, kids who climb on rocks; Tough 41 00:03:22,590 --> 00:03:28,310 kids! Sissy kids! -- they said Sissy kids -- Even kids with Chicken Pox!” 42 00:03:28,310 --> 00:03:32,410 We sang that along with the Armour hot dog kids on our TV sets. 43 00:03:32,410 --> 00:03:38,760 People look back and some feel ashamed that teasing was expected in childhood, and stereotypes 44 00:03:38,760 --> 00:03:44,159 were commonplace in our culture, but was growing up in that environment worse than the hyper-sensitive 45 00:03:44,160 --> 00:03:46,640 culture we live in now? 46 00:03:46,640 --> 00:03:51,320 I look at the rough and tumble of childhood, and the process of learning to deal with bullying 47 00:03:51,329 --> 00:03:57,489 and being insulted, as a process of inoculation. After each instance of being offended, 48 00:03:57,489 --> 00:04:02,280 and then repeating my mother’s “sticks and stones” philosophy, it was like a vaccine 49 00:04:02,290 --> 00:04:07,910 that built up my immune system. Eventually you’re resistant. And often you weren’t 50 00:04:07,910 --> 00:04:10,360 even aware it was happening! 51 00:04:10,370 --> 00:04:16,389 I can’t imagine my college-aged self, living in fear of “microagressions.” Yet, today 52 00:04:16,389 --> 00:04:20,919 there are full-time campus administrators whose job involves scrubbing the campus curriculum 53 00:04:20,919 --> 00:04:27,520 and social life of anything that might offend anyone. And these are college students -- ostensible 54 00:04:27,520 --> 00:04:33,319 adults, headed into the job market… I don’t want to offend anyone with a microaggression 55 00:04:33,320 --> 00:04:35,700 if they’re holding a scalpel! 56 00:04:35,700 --> 00:04:42,280 I try to laugh it off. I don’t want my outrage to match theirs. The best thing I can do is 57 00:04:42,280 --> 00:04:48,440 tell my stories to my kids, and remind them that “Sticks and stones may break their bones, 58 00:04:48,440 --> 00:04:53,580 but names will never hurt them.” They think I wrote it. 59 00:04:53,700 --> 00:04:56,920 I’m Tom Shillue for Prager University.