Aretha Franklin started the conversation, let's continue

R-E-S-P-E-C-T. I never really understood the phrase “respect your elders”. I’ve always been taught that respect is something that has to be earned, that you have to work for. But I don’t really understand that either. R-E-S-P-E-C-T. I never really understood the phrase “respect your elders”. I’ve always been taught that respect is something that has to be earned, that you have to work for. But I don’t really understand that either. To me, respect is a basic human right. It’s something that we should all have the privilege of experiencing from the moment we are born. You are expected to respect boundaries, you are expected to treat someone with decency, you are expected to communicate with people as if you are equals. And I don’t feel like there are levels of respect either. You either respect someone, or you don’t, and I don’t think age should be a factor in that.

I see all these stories in the news about bad parenting, and I think it all boils down to parents not giving their children the respect they are entitled to. When we treat children like their opinions don’t matter, and raise them to believe that they are not as good as someone else, then is it really fair of us to question why so many of them grow up with self-esteem issues? I’m not saying that every child with self-esteem issues is a product of a lack of mutual understanding and respect, but certainly a large proportion of them indirectly are.

Now it comes to loss of respect. Loss of respect is something you earn. It’s something that happens to you when you disregard the interests of those around you. It happens to you when you intentionally harm someone or something else, be it for personal gain or not. It happens to you when you believe that you are superior to others. So let’s end this notion that not all of us are entitled to respect, or that we must respect one person more than another. All decent human beings have an innate right to be respected.