When I was growing up my mom always told me a person’s respect is earned. She didn’t care who the person was. They could be a family member, a friend or someone you just met. It didn’t matter how nice or mean a person was. It didn’t even matter if a person was polite or not. She would always tell me respect had to be earned. She also taught me to be nice to people. To be polite to them even when they weren’t to me. That was a must, but respect was earned. I could see it on my mom’s face when she was being nice to somebody and I could tell if she had respect for them or not.
You know the more I think about it the more I remember my mom also told me to respect my elders and authority. She didn’t say they had to earn it, but when it came to certain authority you could tell having respect for them wasn’t easy. She did it but it wasn’t easy. I have to admit when it comes to showing respect to certain people in authority I too find it difficult, but I guess it is what it is.
The other night I was watching a video from Focus on the Family and in this video Dr. Emerson Eggerichs was talking about giving respect to people. He said respect was given not earned. As soon as I heard that my ears perked up. He said people deserved respect because God made them. I had never heard such a thing. I’ve been told plenty of times to love everyone including the people I may not like, especially the people I may not like because the Bible says to love one another. Doesn’t matter if I like the people or not I am to love them. But to show respect to someone without them earning it, that’s something new to me.
In all honestly I’m still not sure about giving respect instead of having someone earn it. It’s a new concept for me. Even after talking with my husband about it, I’m still not sure. This is something I have to seriously think about and maybe even pray about. Do I give respect to someone because God made them? Do they need to earn my respect even though in my heart I know God made everyone and all creatures? These are thoughts that I now need to seriously think about. Was my mom wrong? Is this man right? Have I been wrong all these years? Or am I right and am I looking at things the right way? Is this man looking at respect wrong? I think I need to think about this respect thing more and maybe even talk with my husband more about it. Even better maybe I need to see what the Bible says about respecting each other.
Tell me, what do you think? Do you give people respect because they are people? Do you think people have to earn each others respect? How do you go about figuring out who gets your respect and who doesn’t? Do you think it needs to be earned or given?
The above is thanks to my “mom” book – My Mom Her Stories. Her Words – It was a Christmas present from my oldest daughter.
Kathleen Smith is an indie author and blogger and she has her own podcast Kathleen’s Korner. You can read more about Kathleen and her family in either Brooklyn Raised Livin’ Upstate or Good-bye Brooklyn Hello Upstate