To justify behavior that is out of sync with tradition, many people use the popular phrase, “I did such-and-such, and I turned out okay.” But when adjusting for moral standards, compassion, or sanity, are we really okay?

Psychologists seem to fight tooth-and-nail to justify behavior that was at one time deemed unacceptable or was a social negative, such as having children out of wedlock or being raised by a same-sex couple.

Children being raised without fathers, children being raised on television and/or fast-food, and children being raised dependant on ADHD-based stimulants, are examples of situations where society strives to prove normality despite tradition.

Studies surface attempting to show that people of such who have become adults after a childhood of one or the other are just as normal, if not better, than people who were raised under traditional standards. The problem here is by what measures they use for comparison.

Normal, or “turning out okay,” usually means they have a decent job, a family, are not on drugs, or in jail, or seem to appear normal in behavior. But looking closer, deep into the heart and mind where scientist cannot delve because they are a surface-level people, there is a different picture.

Morally, emotionally, and mentally, many people suffer from lack of a moral base and cannot discern what decent behavior is and what is not. Many people are rude, selfish, or mean as a long-term result of a childhood based on one of the above abnormalities.

Some are eternally moody, cannot decipher their emotions, follow the wrong instincts, or cannot commit to another person long-term, dispense trust or concern, nor can they receive emotionally correctly.

There are more bad parents, more broken homes, more psychologically impacted children, dysfunctional families, crooked business people, lying politicians, exploitive preachers, gay men and women, drug dependants, needy, homeless, addicted, lonely, disturbed people in this society than ever before, and what is more sad is that many people believe they “turned out okay.”

So are you really okay?

© Jan 2007 By CR Hamilton