By Nancy Patrick

Progressive Insurance Company spends a lot of money on marketing. I have to admit I find some of the advertisements fascinating. The company’s choice of actress Stephanie Courtney to portray the sales representative Flo was a mark of genius. 

Courtney has played the marketing character since 2008 and shows no sign of disappearing anytime soon. As much as I enjoy the Flo commercials, I cringe at another set of Progressive’s commercials—those featuring Dr. Rick, a fictional therapist played by actor Bill Glass. In these commercials, Dr. Rick counsels new homeowners in the millennial and GenX generations about how to avoid the behaviors of their parents’ generations.

I’m sure my list of behaviors is not inclusive, but it will give you an idea of what we do as parents that cause our teenagers to roll their eyes. Of course, when they roll those eyes, they think they will NEVER act like their parents.

Now on the grandparent rung of life, I have lived through and observed all the other phases that have gone before me. One of the early Dr. Rick commercials shows him discussing a young man’s waste of time in cleaning his garbage bins; after all, they contain dirty, nasty stuff. The ad implies that parents’ behaviors that we made fun of have become part of our own routines.

One of my favorites illustrates Dr. Rick’s admonishment to a young gardener to dump her garden statuary. No way—I love my little garden gnome and my ceramic tires with cute puppies peeking over the rims. What is wrong with these little decorative guys cheering up our xeriscaped West Texas gardens?

So as not to provide TMI (too much information), I won’t explain these other examples of becoming our parents, but the list includes talking to those who share the elevator with us, piling too many throw pillows on the couch, using empty butter tubs for leftovers, and showing home movies to visitors. 

When I first saw the Dr. Rick ads, I became a little miffed. Why is he making fun of parents’ behaviors? That’s not very nice, and it certainly seems ungrateful. After seeing dozens of these ads, I began to wonder if I had missed a subtle point.

Is Dr. Rick truly making fun of the behaviors of older people, or is he pointing out the shallowness of those of us who do not appreciate what we consider the quirkiness of other people? 

Cleaning the garbage bins is not a silly exercise. Without an occasional rinse out, our garbage bins would smell like the commercial bins that gag us when we walk by. Speaking to strangers in an elevator may seem stupid to young people, but our kind words might be the only ones that a stranger hears all day. Using my butter tubs for leftovers helps to save the environment.

I have decided that what appears like condescension from Dr. Rick may actually be a satiric way of pointing out some of the endearing behaviors of our parents. Speaking to strangers, practicing frugality, making our homes welcoming, and showing genuine interest in other people may seem naïve to younger people but as we age, we may also find ourselves mellowing in our behaviors.

This phenomenon, called introjection in psychology, refers to the way people absorb the attitudes, values, and even behaviors of the people with whom they spend most of their time (The story behind Dr. Rick of the Progressive insurance ads – The Washington Post). 

Although less sensational than Freud’s theories about parental influence, one study shows that introjection seems to occur at the age when most people buy homes. Perhaps it relates to the financial impact of home ownership and the importance we place on it.

As I thought about it, I wondered how this introjection appears in other relationships. For example, most parents have cautioned their children about “the people they hang out with.” We don’t want them influenced by irresponsible or wayward people. We want them to befriend kind, responsible people who will become good citizens.

I wonder if this appears in our spiritual lives. Do we spend so much of our time with family, jobs, friends, social issues, and other secular matters that we don’t have time for God and Jesus. If so, we probably absorb values and attitudes of those people.

If we spend adequate time with Jesus, we might find ourselves becoming like Him instead of our peers. I think about what the world presents to me every day—violence, hatred, vengeance, ambition, power, greed, and other negative behaviors. If I spend time with Jesus, I will turn violence into peace, hatred into love, vengeance into forgiveness, ambition and power into meekness, and greed into generosity.

Though Dr. Rick’s commercials evoke at least a smile, they suggest that maybe our parents weren’t so silly after all: didn’t they provide what we needed to obtain our own homes? If Jesus’ forgiveness of sinful people seemed ridiculous to the Pharisees, should we follow their behavior or that of Jesus?

Nancy Patrick is a retired teacher who lives in Abilene and enjoys writing