Personal Responsibility

The talk about homeowner's insurance with a friend of mine has had me thinking the past few days. We were talking about how dangerous it is to not have it simply because society as a whole is sue happy. Well, this got me to thinking about personal responsibility. Do we as a society no longer accept personal responsibility? When I was growing up I heard many times, "Nobody owes you a living". Meaning it was my personal responsibility to make my living however I was going to make it. It was no one else's responsibility to do this. Yet, look at statistics today how many people are in the welfare system. Why? Because they were never taught or they don't accept their own personal responsibility. I have two children and as such those two children are my personal responsibility. If I go somewhere with my children then it is my personal responsibility to see to their safety. No one else's. If my children get hurt somewhere it is an accident or lack of my personal responsibility, not someone else's fault. I think it is ridiculous that we as a society feel we can't do without homeowner's insurance simply because no one accepts their own personal responsibility for anything anymore. And that not only applies to homeowners but business owners as well. When I had my brick and mortar art gallery, I had to show my proof of insurance with a 1,000,000 dollar liability just to get my business license. This was for an art gallery and that was liability in case someone got hurt. Really?! So I had to pay out the nose for insurance just in case it was raining and someone slipped coming into the building, or in case someone tripped coming up the steps into the building. So people have such a lack of personal responsibility that even if they can't pick up their own feet correctly it is somehow my fault. Or that somehow, I am supposed to be able to stop the rain and dry off the sidewalk because some ding dong isn't going to think that the water might make thing slick despite it being roughed concrete. Now, I can understand if their is a spill with water on the floor inside a building that isn't cleaned up or some such obvious negligence. However, if I take my child to someone's house to play and they fall off the trampoline it is my responsibility because I am the one who allowed my child up there in the first place. The only time it would be the homeowner's responsibility would be if I left the child in their care with specific instructions on not to let them on the trampoline. Period. End of Story. One thing that brought this up was being told a story of a woman who took her child to a birthday pool party. Child could not swim and mom left child unattended in the pool so that she could get out and take pictures. Child slipped through inter-tube and drowned. Homeowner was the one to spot child floating in pool and pulled child from the pool, homeowner's husband (a doctor) performed CPR. Child's mother was right there on the side of the pool taking pictures of the party and never once took the personal responsibility for her child that she knew could not swim! Yet, she sued the homeowner's who took far more responsibility in trying to rescue and revive the child for everything they have including the husband's medical license. Seriously! Where is the mother's sense of personal responsibility? Her child, her responsibility. Don't get me wrong, I can't imagine the grief and the need to blame someone. But what happened to facing harsh realities and accepting our own failures as our responsibility. I am living in the wrong generation because I just don't understand how my actions and my decisions are someone else's responsibility. If I choose not to watch my children then it is my responsibility if they get hurt. If I choose to not work, then it is my own fault and responsibility to go hungry. If I chose to not study in college then it was my fault and responsibility to flunk out. No one else is responsible for me after I am grown and out from under my parents roof. Wake up world...Ugghhh, I simply don't understand how society can go from accepting responsibility for themselves to blaming everything on everyone else in just a couple generations. Nobody owes you a living or anything else. Ok....rant over with. Blessings, Kat