Maybe We Should

 Psychology tells us that humans respond better to praise than to criticism.  So why have I been told, more than once, that I shouldn't expect thanks for doing what I'm supposed to do?

Some of it is our human predilection to take things and people for granted. It's easy to forget how much work our loved ones put into their chores, their commitments, and to assume they know we appreciate it.  It's easy for us to forget we appreciate it!

We praise our little ones for picking up after themselves, but stop at some point because now they know what to do.  We thank people for going out of their way for us, but not for the day-to-day stuff.  When was the last time a member of your household was thanked for doing dishes or taking out the trash?

If you pick up litter day after day and no one steps in to help, no one says thanks, and maybe even they toss trash around willy-nilly because they know you'll pick it up.. you get tired of it.  You become discouraged.  You stop doing it.  Imagine how long you could go on with positive reinforcement.

How much employment burnout would we relieve? How much teen rebellion is based on the notion that we only notice them when they misbehave?  For that matter, how many suicides could be prevented?

Should we praise positive behaviors as well as (or even instead of) punishing negative ones?  Maybe we should.  

Maybe we should.

Another One "Gone Woke" That Already Was

 

I recently visited the home of Laura Ingalls Wilder in Mansfield, Missouri.  Where she wrote the Little House books that made her famous.  I'm sure my older sisters read those books to me until I was able to read on my own.

I remember when they made a TV show based on the books.  I remember being disappointed that TV Pa had no beard.  Growing up with the books, Pa's entire description was beard and blue eyes.  But I let that go.  Even as a child, I understood about compromise. (How could I not?  I had seven siblings!)

As it happened, Pa's facial hair was the least of the changes.  On a previous visit to Rocky Ridge, at some point in my twenties, I spent most of the time saying things like "that person did not exist" and "that didn't happen that way" to a TV-show fan.

That said, the television show clung to the values of the books.  Even the books were altered from historical fact.  Laura's recollections were rearranged to fit a juvenile fiction format, but she accepted that as long as her deeper truths, her values, remained.

I did post previously about the Laura Ingalls Wilder award for children's literature getting a name change, because of things in the books that are racist by today's standards.  Negro and Indian, in her time, were not racial slurs.  The minstrel show in a later book was a common event for the time. 

The entire family's lives are saved early on by a black man (historical documents tell us he was Dr. George Tann) and the Ingalls family demonstrates compassion for the Osage of Kansas even as Ma fears them.  When the old Indian warns the citizens of De Smet about the deadly winter storms of 1880-1881, his knowledge is respected.  

There have been countless other LIW projects. But the books and TV show are the benchmarks. 

Netflix is producing a new show based on the books.  The town is Independence, Kansas, which lines up with the third book in the series.  The actresses playing Laura and Mary are eleven and fourteen, which closer to the fifth book.  Carrie doesn't seem to exist, which lines up with none of the books.  Dr George Tann exists, consistent with book three.  So already they've shattered any continuity with reality or the books' timeline.  

As for the values that Laura insisted upon?  People are complaining that the show's "gone woke".  How dare they push pretty much the same values Laura did, that Michael Landon did!  The details of the Ingalls' history may be distorted, but the values look to be holding and I see nothing historically inaccurate in the broad strokes.

I gotta laugh so I don't cry.  Or get angrier than is good for me.