Ethics and Ethos - IF

 If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:


If you can dream - and not make dreams your master,
If you can think -and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to speak the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:



If you can make one heap  of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long  after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on !"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son !

Rudyard Kipling (1865 - 1936)


Those eloquent words expressed the ethos or spiritual/ethical way in which Kipling chose to govern his life. A moral and ethical/spiritual set of "rules" by which to live. I found this on a site for ethics training for business and professionals. Perhaps all involved in any way with a family court- should be required to undergo serious training in ethics.

I offer my x husband's version of IF - words he spat out as he beat me to the floor- with his fists. And punctuated with kicks from his workboots- as I was prone-

"If you ever try to leave me you goddammed fucking bitch, I'll get your first husband to help me and he is so poisonous about you that between us, we'll get the children away from you." 

                          Which they proceeded to do- and also as a result, I lost all the properties I was paying for- to have something material to leave my children-And became homeless.                       


I find a rather stark contrast between the ethics practised by many men- and the - ethos- or-rather- vast void of ethics found in men like this- including the ones who repeatedly write hate against women- .They sound like my x !!!!  He was an extreme abuser of women and children- the first was a manipulative being- a very twisted person- who appeared- to some- as -conservative-and "okay. " Only some. Many did not find him -"balanced".That one left for another- who is now gone from him-also. Both sued for child custody. When the first x lost- he left the courthouse- cursing outside and saying" She slept with the #%^&*&#  judge"
 (As reported to me by a person who was outside on the steps- and was disturbed by what was heard)

I think protective and non-abusing mothers who have lost custody of their children -especially to abusers/child abusers- will find much that speaks to them, in Kipling's poem.