Now hold-on before you crucify me and nail me to the cross: I am a woman and I understand that sexual assault is one of the most heinous crimes out there along with abusing those who cannot even defend themselves like the young and the elderly. But hear me out before you rip me apart.

THE WORLD TODAY

As a mother and as I age, I am so worried about leaving my kids in this world when I am gone. Yes as a believer, we train our children in the way we mean for them to go on, but, you have to admit that the world that they are growing up in, is not the world that we grew up in. It’s definitely not the world that our parents grew up, and our grandparents and beyond wouldn’t even recognize it today.

The world is so sex-fueled, sex-crazed and so many boundaries are so blurred that it must be hard at times, to truly know what is right and what is wrong. Now hear me out before you scream at me; woman, but of course we all know right from wrong. My response would be, does everyone really? I’ll come back to this point.

A CULTURE OF OTHERS FIRST VERSUS ME FIRST

I watched a video recently about the people of Japan and how they consider others' feelings before their own. They are a nation of cooperators and collaborators and thus across the board, you see low crime rates to the point many can leave their property, be it a bicycle (unsecured) or laptop in a coffee bar unattended and it will not be stolen. Can you imagine trying to leave your property unsecured in a capital city USA? Do you think you would come back and meet it there?

Additionally, I’ve had a situation come up as a parent I really didn’t know how to explain to my daughter. For example, we have an annual water slide in our area. The rule is you queue/line up and then take turns going down the water slide, adults, children alike.

This year a family held several spaces in the line that effectively allowed them to go down the slide three times in 15 minutes whereas the rest of us went down once in one hour. Now the parents were present and participating in this.

My daughter kept saying, "Oh there goes that girl again. Oh there she is again. Mummy why is that?" Sorry, but the world isn’t fair sometimes just doesn’t cut it.

Also, I have noticed (and this is just my observation) that children are taught to just think of 'me" first. With the increased amount of time parents spend working and the less time they spend parenting, there seems to be a parent centrism that teaches their kids that the world revolves around them. Parents minimize the amount of disciplining because they want the time they spend with them to be quality time and somehow think that this means it should just be fun, even in light of them doing something wrong but heck "it's them first."

To add this, we adults are taught, more and more, follow your truth, I mean how many times have you heard, do what makes you happy? Or think of yourself first before others? I know for me it’s been many times, I’ve heard this message of think of self-first and others last (to be clear, I don’t subscribe to that). Look at our President; Trump. I will not go into the politics of it all but it astonishes me that so many believe that he is for the “common man”. Trump is for Trump, in my humble opinions.

And honestly, like the famous Buddha quote about anger ( i.e. anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned), electing Trump is like expecting the solution to one problem and being left with 100 other problems that you didn’t have in the first place. While you think he will level the playing field for you and others like you, he levels the playing for no-one and we are worst off than we began. Again, just my take on it.

THE WEINSTEIN EFFECT

Our culture, our world, and the fabric of community is shredding. It is all about self, being your best self. Living your best life. Living your truth. We are offended when someone else attempts to teach our children right from wrong, when they are clearly doing something wrong but yet we are too lazy, or scared, or occupied with being the cool parent. Is it any wonder that in an environment where we are all about “me” and we are teaching our kids to be all about "them", an environment that is becoming more sex-fueled, mixed with a little power; we end up with the Weinstein effect (but it could well be the Trump effect too).

Now back to my original statement. I DO NOT FEEL SORRY for Weinstein nor should anyone else. I truly believe that what is done in the dark, will always come to light. At the end of the day, I cannot be his judge and jury, everyone must account for their sins and I think his time has come and is coming.

In the type of world that I described above (and it’s getting worst), it’s easy for a person to feel invincible. Think of themselves first and think there will never be consequences but there is always a price to pay and for Weinstein he has become like Bill Cosby (and deservingly so) the sacrificial lamb.

As a society, we have to teach our boys to respect women, point, blank, period. And we need to teach our girls to speak up. It doesn’t need to be “bad enough” to qualify, rape, abuse (emotional, physical or verbal), mistreatment. I don't subscribe to the fact that the way a girl dresses can garner the type of attention that could lead to an unsavory outcome, if humans thought of others first, that type of thought and judgment would never enter one's head.

I know that overall, there can never be and there is NO reason or justification that would make this kind of behavior ok. Which is why when we see this same type of man in the White House, I shudder because there will have to be a tide whereby those will speak up and clue the nation into the some of the wrongs that are have gone on, are going on and will go on. But the price we paid would be so high that the damage would already be done.

As for Weinstein, it's hard for us to think that people can do monstrous things and more often than not we defend the perpetrator as opposed to the victim, so today let's play our part in restoring the fabric of our culture with the idea of common decency, respect, kindness and love and pass these concepts to our kids as well.

Much Love xoxo