why do we teach?

Last night I took my three year-old son, Owen, to the bookstore. He mostly just plays with the trains and then likes to walk around holding the Elmo, Big Bird, and Cookie Monster stuffed animals that they have for sale. But last night, one of the employees was hosting story time, and I could tell she was reading a book about bullying to some 4-5 year-olds. One of the children must have asked a question because I could hear the employee explaining that "we don't treat people like that because we wouldn't want to be treated in that way." Now, I've thought about this before...why do we bother teaching children about the Golden Rule if we really don't believe in it? Parents, teachers, religious leaders: all of these people sometimes devote their entire lives to reaching out to children, trying to impart to them the importance of manners, civility, fairness. However, when children become teenagers and young adults, they embark on the most difficult transition, I believe, of life: losing innocence. We learn that people are often quick to betray if a reward is in store. We learn that people often have a price. We learn that people are extremely judgmental. It's fine if it's human nature to be this way; heck, I know I am. But I feel like a complete fraud when my children ask me, "Why do people do that?" and I have to explain that some people are just plain mean. And they are truly confused about that. To be honest, so am I. When I was taught morality, manners, and civility, I took it seriously because I thought that the fact that I was being taught those meant that everyone else took them seriously as well. What I should have discovered earlier is that it's all one big smiley lie. We're nice to people (if we agree with them, or often only if they look and act like us). I discovered in middle school that I was forbidden from dating anyone who wasn't white. I literally had no idea that that would matter, but it made me see my family in a different light from that day forward. How could we have one set of morals at church and another in every other aspect of life? I don't think I will ever resolve this paradox in my mind. But there are so many examples in today's society where our children are going to start seeing this paradox, and I think it's a serious problem. Treat others fairly, except if they are not Christian themselves. Well, really just if they're Muslim. Poor people just take advantage of others and are lazy, spoken by stay-at-home middle-class mothers who either never had jobs in their lives or only worked until becoming pregnant. Oh, and poor people who are black are the ultimate outcasts. Well, maybe poor Mexican people have it worse. True compassion is not being a Christian who practices one set of thoughts in church and another in the world. Most people I'm sure would argue that they do not contribute to this paradox, but if we're being really honest with each other, they are. And this disparity does such a grave disservice to our children. It really started me down the cyncial path when I started to notice these things, and I can't bear the thought of my own children being cynical. Because imagine how great our world could be if people set aside judgments and lived as we teach our children.