Character Counts!! Sister Wives

Character Counts 

Since the opening scene of Sister Wives season 3 (since the Brown family filed their lawsuit against the State of Utah, really) my thoughts have turned to the issue of character.

My parents taught me that character, a person’s moral and ethical qualities, defines a person.  You may lose all your possessions and wealth, your job, and your loved ones through circumstances beyond your control, but your character will remain.  In a number of organizations where I have worked, character – beyond all other education, skills and/or abilities – will get you or lose you the job.  Yes, character is that important.

We all have ideas about what makes up a person’s character.  So I turned to the trusty Internet and learned about the “Six Pillars of Character” that a lot of U.S. schools are using to teach character to our kids.  These pillars are:

This is the start of a multi-part series examining the Brown family and their recent actions in light of the Six Pillars of Character.  Stay tuned and please feel free to express your thoughts.  None of us are perfect, but most of us try to do the best we can; as Michael J. Fox said, “I am careful not to confuse excellence with perfection.  Excellence, I can reach for; perfection is God’s business.”  

Honesty is Such  A Lonely Word

Character Counts Part 2

Today I would like to talk about trustworthiness.    Being trustworthy is complex.  We understand on a gut level what it means, but it can be difficult to explain in words, which is why many of us find it difficult to explain sometimes exactly why we don’t think someone is trustworthy (such as one of the Browns).   It involves being honest, having integrity, keeping promises and being loyal.  To make it even more complex, trust may mean different things to different people and in different situations.

Honesty is such a lonely word. Everyone is so untrue. Honesty is hardly ever heard. And mostly what I need from you. Billy Joel, “Honesty”

The most fundamental part of being trustworthy is honesty.  Honesty is more than not lying.  When we communicate to others, being honest includes being truthful, or expressing the facts as we know them.  It involves sincerity and being genuine, and not tricking people with half truths, omissions, or being misleading.  It also incorporates candor; this means that needed information is volunteered rather than being withheld and that we are frank and forthright.

Being honest in your actions involves playing by the rules without cheating, stealing, defrauding or tricking.  My personal opinion is that the Browns’  “rotating bankruptcies” method of financial sustainability is a type of trickery, but others may not share my opinion.

This is one of the things that bothers me about Kody, Meri, Janelle, Christine and Robyn Brown.  I am not sure that they have been honest about their reasons for moving to Nevada.  Was it because of the threat of prosecution or not?  Janelle’s differing responses confuse me (See Mister Sister’s post on Janelle Brown’s affidavit:  http://sisterwivesblog.blogspot.com/2011/10/janelle-brown-excerpts-from-court.html).  I am also not sure of their true reasons for suing the State of Utah, their ultimate goals in pursuing this suit, or who their advisors are in this endeavor (who is behind the scenes).  I haven’t even touched on their reluctance to discuss their religion, even with multiple outlets of Facebook, Twitter and media interviews – or the recent MLM issue.  Looking at this evidence I cannot say that I consider them to be honest.

Trustworthiness also includes integrity.   People of integrity act according to their beliefs.  They do not ditch those beliefs because it is convenient, for instance, when discussing moral issues with their teenagers, or when faced with financial difficulties.  There are so many examples that I consider to show the Browns’ lack of integrity that I cannot list them all.  I’d love to see them discussed in the comments for this post.  

In my post on hypocrisy (http://sisterwivesblog.blogspot.com/2011/10/but-they-seem-like-such-honest-people_19.html) I discussed how I feel the Brown parents do not keep promises.  I feel that “Sister Wives” showed how the parents misled their teenaged children into believing that the kids would have religious choice and meaningful input into family dialogue, which was televised to not be the case.  It is one thing to say that your family is not a democracy and mean it, but another to say you will listen to your teens and then to shut them down when they try to participate in family discussions.

Finally, trustworthiness involves loyalty.  Loyal people do not play off one partner against another.  They do not betray confidences.  My personal opinion is that polygamy is antithetical to loyalty. I think that being loyal to a spouse involves responsibilities to promote that spouse’s best interests.  How can you do that in plural marriage when  spousal interests conflict?  Answer, you must prioritize one over the other, only satisfy partial interests, or choose none – none of this sounds particularly loyal to me when all spouses are supposedly equal.  As per Matt 6:24, “No one can serve two masters.  Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.”  While the Bible was discussing faith and money, this also holds true in matters of love.  I do think that there are limitations on loyalty when maintaining loyalty would be contrary to our integrity.

Next time I will discuss respect, and possibly responsibility (if I feel like it and I don’t have anything better to do – like flipping my hair around).

Resource:  http://josephsoninstitute.org/MED/MED-2sixpillars.html

1.       Phrase borrowed from the Josephson Institute:  http://charactercounts.org/

WRITTEN BY: TERRASOLA~