"My parents always encouraged me and I had a good home life. We were always taught to respect things and other people. It's so different today, because children are just not taught the right way"
About this Quote
Cuthbert’s nostalgia isn’t just personal reminiscence; it’s a quietly competitive claim about what produces excellence. Coming from an athlete whose career was built on discipline, repetition, and the ability to endure discomfort, the praise of “a good home life” reads like an origin story for grit. “Respect things and other people” sounds modest, almost old-fashioned, but it doubles as a code for order: boundaries, manners, restraint, the small daily habits that make big public composure possible.
The sharp turn - “It’s so different today” - does cultural work. It moves her from biography to judgment, from “my parents” to “children,” turning upbringing into a social diagnosis. The subtext is less “kids are bad” than “adults have stopped doing the unglamorous labor of shaping them.” By framing respect as something you’re “taught,” she rejects the comforting myth that character just appears. It has to be coached, corrected, reinforced - like training.
Context matters: Cuthbert came of age in mid-century Australia, when deference to authority and tight community expectations were treated as civic virtues, not personal constraints. Her language mirrors that era’s confidence that there is a “right way,” singular and legible. That certainty can feel blunt now, especially in a culture more skeptical of hierarchy and more alert to whose “right way” gets enforced. Still, the quote lands because it captures a real anxiety: when everything is individualized, who is responsible for transmitting the shared rules that keep public life livable?
The sharp turn - “It’s so different today” - does cultural work. It moves her from biography to judgment, from “my parents” to “children,” turning upbringing into a social diagnosis. The subtext is less “kids are bad” than “adults have stopped doing the unglamorous labor of shaping them.” By framing respect as something you’re “taught,” she rejects the comforting myth that character just appears. It has to be coached, corrected, reinforced - like training.
Context matters: Cuthbert came of age in mid-century Australia, when deference to authority and tight community expectations were treated as civic virtues, not personal constraints. Her language mirrors that era’s confidence that there is a “right way,” singular and legible. That certainty can feel blunt now, especially in a culture more skeptical of hierarchy and more alert to whose “right way” gets enforced. Still, the quote lands because it captures a real anxiety: when everything is individualized, who is responsible for transmitting the shared rules that keep public life livable?
Quote Details
| Topic | Parenting |
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