I don’t have children at home now, so my opinion is from experience, not from what I’m doing now.
If I may say so myself, I got it right.
We taught that it’s important to respect all people as people, to respect their personhood, but that it’s not necessary or smart to like and trust everyone.
Do unto others is good, so long as you remember that if you were a murderer, you wouldn’t expect others to let you get away with it, or let you out to do it again.
For “Do unto others” to make any sense, you have to have a strong sense of right and wrong to start with. And a good idea of how
you should “done unto” when you’ve done something wrong. It seems that people tend to think that “Do unto others” means that they have to treat others as if they are Gods who are never wrong and who should be treated as innocents always. People need correction and punishment from time to time. “Do unto others”, properly understood, doens’t preclude “though love”.
But, if you think that you should be treated with kid gloves no matter what you’ve done, treating others as "another I’ means nothing. Some people want everyone to treat them kindly, no matter what. They cheat on their spouses and expect that they should be forgiven and treated as if they did nothing–and just as soon as they confess! They say horrible things, and expect that everynone should understand that they’re just having a bad day–over and over again.
Maybe, in the US anyway, considering Americans’ bad behavior, we should not wish to treat other as we want them to treat us (as another I), but wish that others would treat us as we should be treated - corrected or punished, whichever is appopriate.
My pet peeve is people who think that their personal problems and bad moods are excuse-enough for bad behavior. Whatever happened to the idea that we share happiness with the general public and keep our troubles to ourselves and very close friends–and then only when it wouldn’t ruin something good for the other person (You don’t announce that you’re getting divorce, have cancer, or lost your job right after your friend shares good news with you, or when your friend is celebrating something, like a b-day or anniversary, or is just having a cook-out.
What’s with every wearing all of their troubles on their sleeves, and hoping to bring down just as many people as they can with their bad moods. I know misery loves company, but didn’t most people’s parents teach them about the happy/troubles idea? When did our society become a bunch of cry babies who go around speading misery.
A local hospital had to stop playing Brahm’s Lullaby whenever a baby was born, because one woman who had lost a baby didn’t want to hear anyone else’s celebration and complained. A generation ago (or maybe it’s more), that would have been seen as boorish behavior. Didn’t everyone’s parents teach them not to rain on someone else’s parade?
When our son was born, he was sent to the NICU because they mistakenly thought he had a problem that would likely either kill him or cause mental retardation. We spent days in the maternity ward, hearing everyone else visiting with their babies. Should we have complained and asked that everyone close their doors so we didn’t have to hear it? Of course not!! They had the right to celebrate – and openly, too. We had the responsibility not to rain on their parade and not to walk through the halls pouting so that everyone would know that we weren’t happy about our son not being on the ward like everyone else’s babies. (Our son was fine. Not sick at all.)
But some would use the “another I” idea and think that others shouldn’t celebrate, because others should put themselves in their place. I can’t express how backward that thinking is. We’re supposed to celebrate others’ good fortune, even when we aren’t as fortunate. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you, as long as you’re not the kind of person who thinks everyone else should arrange their lives (celebratiosn, etc) according to your situation and mood.
Let us resist the beat when the words are wrong.