Ever since her husband’s disgraceful scandal, South Carolina First Lady Jenny Sanford has been praised for the “grace and dignity with which she has handled this tragic situation”. Many appear to regard her as a true lady. While I certainly feel for her, I’m afraid I would disagree.
A true lady understands when to speak and when to keep silent, and what should – and shouldn’t be said. Wasn’t a lack of discretion what everyone criticized Gov. Sanford for? And yet his wife has written a book and has appeared in numerous media interviews, all the time revealing what a terrible husband she had in detail that was nobody’s business. I ask you, would a lady do that?
A lady does not attempt to capitolize on tragedies for the sake of her public image and/or political ambition. A lady is unselfish and humble, and seeks the healing of everyone who was involved rather than caring what everyone thinks of her, or worse yet, saying “What can I get out of this?”
Perhaps most importantly – and this is incidentally Mrs. Sanford’s greatest failure – a lady understands and accepts that it has to be a pretty thin pancake only to have one side.
So well said, Hannah. I didn’t know if you were aware but Mr. Sanford was a graduate of my high school Westminster Academy. I actually found a Westminster school magazine with his face on the front of it not too long ago. All very sad what happened. His decision affected a lot of people. But reliving the past over and over again as you said “capitalizing on tragedies” doesn’t change the situation or make it better. In the end, Mrs. Sanford is hurting herself tremendously by reliving the past over and over again. She might gain financially, but she will end up being a sick lonely woman who has forgot how to do anything else but complain. She won’t be remembered as a lady but a complaining nag. Love your pancake analogy by the way! 😉