Do You Really Condone Even When You Condemn?

Another item inspired by the comic strip, “For Better or For Worse” by Lynn Johnston.

In this one, a young boy proudly hands his mother a bunch of pretty flowers. She then asks him where he got them from. To which he replies, “Well, I sort of …er … got them from Mrs Baird’s place.” To which mum replies, “You can’t go taking flowers from people’s gardens, honey – it’s very wrong. – You must NEVER do it again.” Sound advice I am sure you agree? However she spoils this admonition in the last panel by saying, “… But if you do – try and leave on the stem.”

Whilst I agree with her that longer stems make it easier to keep cut flowers in vases, one does have to be careful not to give mixed messages, whether to children or too adults. Whether with short or long stems, it is still wrong to take other people’s property without permission, isn’t it?

I do realize that in many ways taking someone else’s flowers without permission may be a minor thing to some (but not if you grew them and they were the only ones you got,) but by encouraging it, even if only slightly, it is also teaching the wrong message isn’t it?

Forgetting flowers for the moment is there something else in your life currently, that you, outwardly perhaps, condemn but also passively condone if not actively encourage? What say you?