I am thinking today about Mr. Woody Williams, who passed away this year. Mr. Williams was a US Marine during World War 2 and was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions on Iwo Jima.
Reading the account of his actions is astounding. Further amazement is how little this honor reflected on his personality, as this gentleman was a salt of the earth, genuine, friendly, outgoing fellow that always placed others first. He always had a good word for me, was interested in how things were for my bunch; and then right after the pleasantries the age-old rivalries and friendly barbs between Marines and Soldiers would come out, all in the best humor and with fraternity in mind.
Great man. Service before self, well into his nineties. His generation had to be adults before they were old enough to be considered so by the calendar- and I would think seventy years plus of service to his nation was exhausting.
With the passing of the greatest generation, we are certainly missing both this attitude and influence. We miss those that put service always before self, those that accepted the mantle of leadership regardless of how taxing it was, and those that were the consummate adults in the room.
The adult in the room is the fellow that bears this burden of service to something greater than self, and I think individuals so turned are starting to disappear from society, at least shrinking to a minority. My impression is that we would rather as a society criticize than act, amplify this criticism through social media, and would rather couch behavior through a political/ woke lens than take a stand on an issue and live with it. We have become a society of lemmings, chasing this social media noise, fearful that we will called out as an outlier.
The Greatest Generation had this character of service before self in their collective DNA, but somehow in this information age that is largely turned to the critical, being the adult is less attractive. It is a quality of this great society that possibly we cannot do without. I would think that my first task here is to demonstrate the differences between the adults in the room and those who do not immediately qualify.
I have mentioned before that one of my son’s favorite books is the story of the Three Little Pigs. I am guessing that you know the story. 1st and 2nd Little Pigs threw up rickety houses, so that they had time to dance and sing, enjoy the nice weather in beautiful carefree fashion, all the while criticizing their brother who sought to set himself up exactly right. The story culminates with his two homeless brothers, coming to him to avoid a literal predator, and the third pig took them in, preventing them from certain demise.
The book closes with them living there in the house built by the 3LP, enjoying the life and circumstances for which they did not labor. Yep, the third little pig was the adult in the room, and because of this, he got shafted.
It is a wonderful life to be 1/2LP. They are carefree, artistic, beautiful creatures who follow their dreams. They likely get invited to parties, are brilliant conversationalists about topics about how pigs should be treated, how the world should be without predators, and if one dances and sings their problems away it is a healthier existence. They are beautiful, wonderful, but also naïve.
I doubt that 3LP is thought of so kindly by his peers. I doubt that he thought about issues other than how they just are- and spent little time dreaming big, rather of a mind to go out there and work for it. Earn it.
I imagine the 3LP is likely dull at parties. When times are great, I’d imagine his life is fairly spartan and unrewarding, but that all changes when he is needed. He is totally irrelevant until he is necessary and then becomes indispensable, clearly the one called when another is about to be eaten. 3LPs do not talk about how things “should’ be, only how things “must be” or “are”, and as they understand this become experts in navigating the realities of life.
So, what makes up an adult?
- Adults in the room understand effects. “If you do this, this may/likely/will happen.” Since this is counter to the narrative of the beautiful people that wish to dance and sing, it is largely ignored. Adults in the room, when they interject in this fashion, absent emergency, are looked upon as negative.
- Adults in the room are not turned towards the critical; but they are the targets of criticism, as they are the ones actually doing the work. Those in the world that are the most critical, the most cynical, that have never built anything, are willing to stand on the sidelines and tell you how it should have been done after the fact.
- The Adult in the room believes that he belongs to something greater than self. Be this a team, a department, a unit, a group, a profession, a religion, or the country itself. Adults will deny themselves comfort to advance the cause of this group. You will hear one say, “What is good for the group is good for me.”
- Adults in the room are disciplined. They rarely lose control of their sensibilities, mostly because they understand the effects of such loss. They know that they may be called upon in an emergency to help themselves or others and wish to maintain proper faculties should and when one arises.
- Adults in the room are unafraid to take a stand, even though they will be called named afterwards. They will talk in plain spoken terms on issues of the day in terms of qualification- as in “a man should not be permitted to play in women’s sports.” Their reasoning is that a man is not qualified to do so, because well- it is a sport set aside for women. He will be called named for this, that are ugly, but he will not care. Adults in the room are resistant to activism. They understand that the whole of the cause is greater than one particular aspect of it.
- Adults in the room are subjected to an elevated standard. They will perform at this higher-than-normal standard, not content with just doing enough to just get by. Performing to this standard makes it easy for them to get the crappy jobs, and not complain, while the ones that are beating in their time and doing enough to hang around would. It is easier to give the tough jobs to the one that does not complain.
- Adults in the room are the people that we call when we are in the ditch. They will come and help, even if they warned us about behavior that would put us there, and we love them for this, at least for a second.
- Adults in the room act in good faith. Good faith requires that they seek out the truth and the right- either the personal right or the larger right. My Dad, a consummate Adult in the Room, gave me the best military and life advice that I have ever heard. He told me when I was a young officer, “The right thing, and the smart thing, are always the same thing.”
- The main aspect that does and will define the adult; is the ability to have calm and candid conversations about all every topic under the sun, without resorting to name calling or bombast. If your default position is the shout down, either in person or on social media- then I am afraid that you do not qualify as an adult.
Teddy Roosevelt opined about the whole of this, when he said, “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
Maybe thinking along the lines of a practical exercise, parents that are not adults in the room, and belong to the informational mob, generate my personal belief that they are not exercising in the best interest of their children. The first part of childishness is “child”, and a child must be denied those things that are harmful to them, or at the very least potentially harmful. It becomes the main function of the parent to see to this care.
But, what if that child wished to be a pirate? Identified as one, using the vernacular of the day. Should his parents allow one of his hands to be surgically removed and replaced with a hook to satisfy the societal whim of the moment? Surely the child will not change his mind in adulthood about being a pirate- so the parent is safe in doing so, right?
Adulthood. I have no idea why this is out of fashion. I have no idea what we are going to tell the children of this time, when we permit their foolishness today, natural within their youth- to impact them for the remainder of their lives. “I’m sorry that I let you do that, Son- at the time it was considered fashionable- and I did not want to be called names by people on social media that I did not know.” Not right but fashionable.
Adults need to look over childishness, and not be motivated by it. I think that ought to be the founding principle, and the cornerstone for those that ultimately want to be the Adult in the room. This society certainly needs a few more.