My Rant

I was just over at Making Home reading a very good post. It's about birth control. I personally don't have a problem with birth controll and believe that it's a personal decision between husband, wife, and God. However, the post put me in mind of something I've wanted to write about for some time. Professionalism seems to be a thing of the past. Everywhere you go people are just plain rude/and/or take liberties with how they treat others. I constantly hear complaints about how unprofessinal somebody was. I continually see unprofessional behavior everywhere I go. Society today is all too familiar. When I was a girl, children referred to adults outside of their families as Mr. Mrs. or Miss (that was before Ms). I would never have considered calling a friend of my mother by her first name. Nowadays children call adults by thier first names and don't even consider using a title. At businesses people no longer are respectful and kind. Instead they are rude as if they are doing you a favor for being there instead of you doing them the honor of using their business. People on the street assume they can and should address others by thier first names without asking. Nurses in the hospital address patients by their first name without permission. Patients insist on calling nurses by their first name. Doctors call everyone by thier first name but then insist on being addressed as "doctor". That is so wrong. If you want to be called by your title then you must refer to others by their title unless they ask you to use their first name. I feel that if we as a society would go back to addressing each other with respect a lot of the disrespect out there would go away, and a lot of the inappropriate conversations out there would stop. People you don't know or don't know well will ask you if you're husband is good in bed. Co workers tell you intimate bedroom details as if you wanted to know or talk about their many conquests publicly. Whatever happened to a lady/gentleman doesn't kiss and tell? If you have more than 2 children people tell you to stop it or ask you if you haven't figured out how that happens yet. If you have one child people ask you if you're having another and when. If you don't have children and you've been married more than a year people want to know when you are starting your family or what you're waiting for. If the person anwers that personal question indicating that they are trying or they do want kids they get bombarded with even more personal and completely rude questions about their sex life, positions, etc. Honestly! I have struggled with infertility and people ask me if it's me or him. If we are having enough sex. What positions are we using. Have we tried this or that. Are we going to try this or that. I have had complete and total strangers ask me things like this. I had one lady I had only just met who discovered Alaina is adopted say, "Why? Can't you have your own?" And she said that as if adoption is a lesser choice. My question to the nosy people is this. How is anyone else's family life any of your business? We have already had odd looks as we are raising our daughter to call our friends Mr. or Mrs. etc. calling a non family adult by their first name is not an option for her. She is also going to be learning insanity like yes sir and yes ma'am, and may I be excused. We apparently have lost our minds. I have always called my patients Mr. or Mrs. I do not allow a doctor to call me by my first name if I may not call him or her by his or her first name. If he asks may I call you Rebecca? I say sure if I can call you Fred or whatever the name might be. They might be a doctor, but that doesn't mean they derserve more respect as a person than I do. The same goes for a first meeting with a new GYN. He can meet me for the first time with my clothes on or he can choose to take his off and put a paper robe on and meet me that way. The same with ministers. If you call me by my first name expect me to call you by your first name and not pastor so and so. I had a pastor and his wife that I loved dearly, but they drove me nuts as they demanded to be called pastor and sister so and so while calling me and my husband by our first names. The pastor even told everyone from the pulpit that we are not allowed to use his wife's first name as she deserved our respect. I respected her very much and still do, but I do not agree with people holding themselves up as deserving more respect than others. I am an army wife. I refer to everyone by their title unless asked to do differently. If Col. so and so wants to call me Rebecca he had better expect to be called Jim. Otherwise he can call me Mrs. P. and I will call him Col. so and so. The same would go with president Bush. I will call him President Bush and he will call me Mrs. P. or it can be George and Rebecca. There, I've had my say.