Commentary: Grandma’s Advice

As a kid growing up in Front Royal, I would make my summer pilgrimage to my grandma’s farm to spend time with her and my cousins in The Plains, Va. These were great times and full of many memories that I cherish to this day.

One of these memories focused on our daily activities of playing in the creek that ran through the fields. Each day my grandmother would tell us that we should not swim downstream of the cows. We heard her message but never paid much attention since the cows were upstream from where we were at that time. We ignored it.

It was not until later in my adult work life, while dealing with corporate business issues that the power of her advice hit me. I was dealing with having to solve an endless stream of problems that never seemed to end before the next issue was on top of me. At that moment, the advice of my grandmother came into clarity.

I realized the cows upstream represented the main cause of the problem that affected us downstream by the cow’s bathroom habits which would flow downstream to where we were playing. I was able to see that my business problems were like the upstream cow situation. The cows represent a major problem that was causing so many downstream issues. No matter how hard I worked to solve these corporate issues, more just kept on coming. Once I understood what the upstream problem was, the issue had a simple solution for both situations. Run the cows out of the stream above us and identify the corporate upstream problem causing the downstream problems. My life became more manageable in my corporate career when I learned to identify the upstream problems that were causing all the downstream difficulties and dealt with the main issue. The result was that most of the downstream problems disappeared.

I tell you this story because I think it applies to our current situation as it relates to the controversy about banning a select group of books from a public library. I see banning books as a downstream problem and not the main issue. If we continue to deal only with the downstream problem, it will continue to create more division throughout our community. The upstream issue is the lack of parental controls on children’s access to the internet which allows them to get far more damaging information than we ever had as a child growing up in our day. Kids have access 24/7 to everything downstream parents want to be banned, even during school hours. The issues that people are complaining about in our public libraries are multiplied 1000 times on the internet. If I were a kid today, I would not have to go to the library to get information on topics that I was not supposed to know. The internet has it all. Monitoring what children have access to in the library is easy. But many parents have no clue what their kids are viewing on the internet…Any topics they choose!

So, let’s get to the real problem that will not be solved by banning books from the public library to gain political points.  Go to the source. Get the cows out of the stream. Be responsible parents and be involved with what kids are allowed to see at home on their free internet time. This will have a greater impact than making a big deal about banning public library books that others want to read.

We allow freedom of expression to the point that politicians today say anything and express any type of untruthful spin to support their self-interest. The sad part of this is that many citizens don’t seem to care to address all the mistruths and lies from this group of people because their freedom of expression is protected by our constitution, but they are very focused on stopping the ability of others to express themselves by demanding the acceptance of only a narrow range of books that fits into their thinking.

We, as parents, decide what our children are allowed to read from the library, so that can’t be the issue. Without comparable parental supervision, it must be what our children are allowed to view upstream at home that will make the difference.

Michael Graham
Front Royal

Writer’s comment: I have been and will continue to be a passionate supporter of the strength of the family in establishing the foundation of integrity for our children to follow in becoming faith-based, ethical, and logical adults. Our children watch us for an example to follow of how adults handle the issues of life. This example will be passed on to their children. I’m worried that in today’s society, we have not been the best role model for them to emulate in the future.

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