A few days ago Scriptor Senex blogged in answer to the question "What is your greatest source of pride?" posed in C Beth’s Blog the One Minute Writer the previous day. It is rare for my opinions to differ from SS's to an extent which might warrant a comment but on this occasion I'm not sure that I go along with his views 100%.
The headmistress of my (and SS's) Prep School was a Roman Catholic. As such she ensured that, despite the fact that the school was, in theory, non-denominational (I was brought up in the Church of England) we had a good grounding in scripture by rote and, in particular, the Seven Deadly Sins (which I can, of course, still recite). At the tender age of about 7 we would be told that 'Pride' was a sin and in the next lesson (or the next sentence sometimes I'm sure) we would be told to have Pride in our work. This confused my simple, youthful mind. But when I asked for an explanation I was told not to be impertinent.
I think that, all these years later, I understand the issue a little better.
My understanding of pride is that it includes a pleasure or satisfaction taken in something done by or belonging to oneself or which reflects credit upon oneself, for example, civic pride. I rather think that my close family in general fall into that category.
I am proud of my children (I'm unsure about the grammatical way of expressing that now that Andrew is dead). I'm proud of their achievements. I'm proud of their independence. I'm darned sure that their Mum feels the same.
I was trying - obviously unsuccesfully - to differentiate between things to be proud of and the expression 'You must feel very proud', which by implication in the way it was said was a compliment to me rather then them. My view was their achievements should be a source of pride to them not me though, of course, I was proud of what they achieved.
ReplyDeleteP.S. I'm very proud of my brother's achievements but I can't take any pride in him having achieved them.
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