The Antelope Wife: Respect

With the fact that there are multiple that are in various generations, each one is warranted some amount of respect.  The one most commonly thought about when respect is brought up is your elders. “He was excited by this ancient working out of the old-way vengeance, pleased young Shawano had taken his advice.  He nodded all around at the other men, grinning. “ (132) Anything an elder said was taken to heart, and if advice was given a person took it with gratitude.  If they advised you that you adopted someone to replace your dead brother, the quoted passage, you did so and tried your best to succeed and uphold their instructions.  Older members of a group usually get the respect they get due to all the years they have experienced and survived.  That is why in most traditions one wouldn’t do anything until approved by an elder,  or the family would wait for the elder to go first before any of the others, “When they all had the cake in hand, they looked at it hungrily and waited for the elder to taste.” (138) But not only do elders deserve respect.  Anyone that is older than you should get your respect.   A mother deserves respect, but not only because of her age but because she is your mother.  One may not think somebody young deserves respect, for example one as old as twenty years.  But they still deserve it, they have ideas of their own that may not have been thought of before.  So stereotypical or not, you do have to respect your elders – who do know a lot from their years of living.  But also, one must consider the minds of the younger ones who have been raised in different ways than the elders and exposed to different things.