When I was young, my family played car games on road trips. There were classics like the license plate game and eye spy, and one we called the family game.
When it was your turn you chose a family you knew and gave the others in the vehicle information about their composition. "There is a mom, a dad, and four kids." Guessing would ensue until someone figured out who it was.
As young children we typically define family as those who live in a home together. Soon we add to that our grandparents, cousins and the aunts and uncles who are so important to that equation. It expands further as we experience the circle of people we aren't related to, but with whom we share important bonds; friends, co-workers, teammates, church members, and classmates. They are the individuals who come alongside us at different times of life, if we’re lucky, and they establish such importance in our lives we call them family.
We cherish the gift of the nuclear family; those people who were our introduction to attaching to others and 小蓝视频 loved. Because of them, we learned what family can mean. That allows us to be thankful for those we describe as family, whether linked by DNA or not. So wouldn't it be amazing if we recognized that we are all connected? That we share this common experience of 小蓝视频 part of the human race on this planet? It’s truly the ultimate in extended family.
So, how are we treating our family?
An athlete falls in the middle of a competition and is harassed mercilessly online and by pundits. A politician makes a statement some disagree with and is subjected to death threats. A young singer making his way in the music industry gets messages from strangers telling him he's too ugly to live.
That athlete has a family. She is someone's daughter. She is someone's granddaughter.
That politician has a wife and children. He is a dad. He is a brother.
That singer has a mom and a dad. He has siblings. He volunteers as a Big Brother.
All of these individuals have people in their lives who love them. They have families who hurt when they hurt. They feel the pain of their child, grandchild or friend when people they don’t even know take delight in piling on.
We can claim innocence and insist we aren’t the ones spreading the gossip or posting the toxic content, but every time we seek out the scandalous, every time we smirk at the caustic comments, and every time we are entertained by the ugliness, we are contributing to it—contributing to the hurt and degradation of those with whom we share this familial experience.
So how are we treating our family?
Nearly 40% of Canadians report 小蓝视频 verbally bullied in the workplace. 47% of Canadian parents say they have had at least one child who has been bullied. One report suggested bullying is so ingrained in online behavior the lines have become permanently blurred. We’ve gotten to a point that we see nothing wrong with hurling insults or piling abuse on people we don’t know. Or those we do. Or those in the public eye. They deserve it. We’re just stating an opinion. It’s just words. The result is we’ve become indifferent to the pain 小蓝视频 caused. We are using language as a weapon and we need to think about what that’s doing.
Since 2007, the third Monday in February has been recognized as Family Day. Perhaps fortuitously, this year it lands on February 21 which is also International Mother Language Day, an event promoting the preservation and protection of all languages used by people of the world. Sadly, we are losing an alarming number of languages across the globe. In fact the rate of extinction is surpassing plants, birds and mammals.
Language needs to be protected, not just from loss, but from how it is used. Protected from 小蓝视频 used as a weapon. Protected from 小蓝视频 used to heap abuse. Protected from indifference at its power. And if we’re looking for something great to give our families, we can consider the words we speak, the words we post and the words we react to. We’re 小蓝视频 watched, so let’s give them something positive to look at and be the kind of mentors they deserve.
We can connect the dots between a day recognizing family and one seeking to preserve language. Perhaps the best way to celebrate the first is to respect the second. No matter what language we speak, we need to take care of the words we use, because doing so will help us take better care of each other. That’s my outlook.
