Be a Good Human: Crafting Morality Tales In Our Current Culture
Writing Stories of Gratitude, Contentment, Kindness, Friendship, Bravery, Loyalty, Courage, and more
It’s true what they say: Don’t upset a writer, or they’ll put you in their next book.
I’ve often been asked where I get my inspiration or how I come up with certain ideas, and the truth is: life and the world around me! (And a very vivid imagination!) I’ve also been asked why, as someone who doesn’t yet have kids, I’m writing children’s stories. That answer is a little more multi-faceted. While I don’t have kids, my friends do, and I often find myself thinking up stories for them. But more than that, the encounters I’ve had with other people have inspired story ideas. I cannot tell you how many times someone’s behavior has bothered me so much that I couldn’t shake the thought.
Late one night, I wondered and talked aloud to myself about a young woman whose entitlement frustrated me, “Why am I so bothered by her entitlement?? Why does it matter?” I asked myself. I was so bothered by it that I couldn’t sleep And the answer was because I have to write about it. It would keep bothering me until I wrote it with pen on paper so others could see the ugliness of entitlement and learn from it.
It’s important to raise young people in the right way, to teach them proper manners, politeness, gratitude, and general good behavior. There are so many rude people in the world, so many entitled, ungrateful people who think the world owes them. We have generations raised on the likes of Spongebob, Family Guy, The Simpsons, and Bluey. No offense intended if you like those shows, but I will point out that we mimic what we consume.
As a young person, if you watch a TV family disrespect the father figure, you are likely to repeat that behavior. In fact, not only will you repeat it, but you’ll likely grow up believing that (just like the dads on TV), rather than an authority figure, dads are the doofy screw-ups that anyone can disrespect and talk down to.
Rather than morality tales that teach our children gratitude and contentment, we have episode upon episode of shows teaching us that if we are sneaky enough, if we whine and cry enough, if we are manipulative enough, or if we learn how to blackmail someone with enough skill or outflank and outmaneuver other people, we can and will eventually get what we want. I remember my mom reading The Berenstain Bears Get The Gimmies to me as a kid (excellent choice, Mom!). As a result, when we were at the checkout, not only did I have better self-control and not get ‘the gimmies,’ when I saw other children throw tantrums in the checkout line to get what they wanted, my Mom said that I had a look of utter shock on my face. The secondhand embarrassment I felt! How could they behave so terribly??
Or how about the importance of my favorite story themes: bravery, courage, friendship, loyalty, and perseverance? The classic story of the underdog? These themes are so incredibly potent and wonderful, and I don’t know about you, but they make my heart swell with unheard music, they cause warrior’s blood to course through my veins, and they make me want to pick up my sword and fight and win. Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, the Ickabog, the Redwall series, the Mysterious Benedict Society, the Percy Jackson series, and countless other stories have inspired me to step outside of my comfort zone, to be braver than I believe, to fight the good fight, and to fight for what’s RIGHT. These stories are so important in forming a strong heart within us when we’re young so that we aren’t just meek and timid, but so we can know that even if we’re the smallest mouse in the village, the runt of the family (a reference to my story of the Brave Little Warrior Mouse), that as long as we have heart, and we choose to be brave and strong, we can prevail!
All of these things have gone into my writing. So next time I see you act entitled, be ungrateful, be rude to a customer or customer service, patronize your colleagues, act like you’re better than someone else, or waste your life away in front of the TV? You can bet there’ll be a story about you in my notebook shortly thereafter.
I hope, instead, that you’ll be inspired by what these stories teach. And in my opinion, these stories aren’t just for children. We all need these reminders – and sometimes, we need someone to point out bad behavior in us that maybe we hadn’t noticed before.
Until next time :)
Emma
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