Because not every adult they encounter has their best interests in mind, so to protect them from the growing list of even supposed to be safe adults who turn out not to be their parents resorted to, out of necessity, telling children to listen only to them…Removing the parenting ‘trend’, ‘problem’ she’s speaking about usually only happens among affluent middle class, almost always white parents of suburbia, her writing immediately screams well off, children attending a good school, idyllic American life complete with white picket fence, not just by her topic but rather her approach to it. Her clarion call for all the other grown-ups in her children’s lives to please tell them what to do, condition them to the rigors of social order, condition them to following the directions of someone not herself, precursors to everything from accepting criticism to holding down a job readily tells readers she doesn’t have a black or brown child subject to totally different conversations just to go out of the house daily and by the grace of god return to it after the school day, that evening. Doesn’t have to worry about if her child encounters a police officer and not merely because she has taught them the ‘holy mantra’ of respecting and obeying all adults so they won’t have a problem; she doesn’t have to worry about it because no cop will look at her kid thinking thug, thief, up to no good, engage in the negrophobia, adultification common to young, black, especially boys, gun them down in the street for looking like— insert flimsy excuse here. They don’t have an ‘officer slam’ at her kids’ schools chiefly because they don’t do that in suburbia, in predominately white schools only in urban areas, majority black educational institutions; should they have resource officers, they are A- the properly trained mentors they are supposed to be, not authoritah, power obsessed bullies with badges, handcuffs and guns, because parents insist on it. And B- because her child is white he won’t be given a second glance, if he is he will be given the benefit of the doubt not afforded ethnic students too often today. Translation her son will never be thrown across a classroom for refusing to leave independent ‘he wouldn’t have his phone out in class because he’s not allowed to take it to school; ‘see this is what I’m talking about, situation X, Y, Z arises because children listen to no adults apart from their parents,’ ignoring the larger problems of poor classroom management, student engagement and administrative overreaction. It certainly wouldn’t deteriorate into example 2’s restrain hold for a student ‘involved in a fight’ to picking her up, slamming her to the ground leaving a knot over her eye then failing to report it, lying about it to make it appear like an accident; should such a scenario take place, officer would be immediately fired, dido example 3 body slamming a 15 year old student trying to stop a fight involving her sister, resulting in no charges for the obviously errant officer. Further both due to her children being likewise economically stable, no one is going to accuse her son of ‘stealing’ milk, handcuff him, let alone charge him with larceny over that 65 cent carton, regardless of being on the free lunch program and forgetting his milk, the true story of the black teen. If her child was caught in the hall without a hall pass by his school resource officer trying to use the bathroom during lunch his Caucasian, ‘clean cut,’ nice clothes look would automatically make him more believable talking about his medical issue’s roll in why he needs to go to the bathroom now than the black kid with ill-fitting school uniform, baggy pants, ‘bad neighborhood,’ negative reputation, he wouldn’t have to resort to throwing an orange at the wall relieving his frustration at trying to get an adult to listen, forget body slammed to the floor hitting his head unto knocked out; officer then scrambling to confiscate witness student’s cellphone video to cover his violent behavior. He would have been escorted to the bathroom, afterwards his next class or the principal’s office with a side recommendation to bring a doctor’s note to the school nurse to avoid future incidents. In fact, her examples of common parenting conundrums and fellow parents’ compulsive need to fix, ‘to protect from failure’ tells readers she’s never had so much as a mildly negative experience with any of her child’s teachers. Where the teacher was blatantly wrong, overbearing, was mean, incompetent in ways we’ve seen dominating headlines, punishing students for speaking their native Spanish, lowering grades of students for refusing to stand during the pledge of allegiance, this case in solidarity with those objecting to bad treatment of native Americans, appropriate since the student was native American. Writing derogatory remarks on the faces of slow readers, writing humiliating, name calling, inappropriate remarks on graded homework, humiliating younger grade students for mistakes in front of the whole class, student recordings of the despicable things said by teachers about themselves, fellow classmates, one teacher who, in reference to a new 3rd grade class being formed took votes on who to throw out of her classroom, not at all how the school planned to handle the transition. At least in no story, scenario she’s heard about concerning her children, you never know what might be going on your child isn’t telling you about; too scared, ashamed, busy thinking it’s their fault. Here’s a big one, had unrealistic expectations, being well off as she doubtlessly is her and her husband could likely afford pre-school, live in an area where there are plenty of choices for pre-kindergarten education, less prone to huge waiting lists unless it was for a posh academy, won the luck lottery of getting them in to a free option, so her children were right where they were supposed to be, managed most of the things on their beginning of the year assessment, already acclimated to a school setting breezing through kindergarten as basic review, how said teachers are oriented to teach…. Yet even inside the white suburbia wonderland less and less Americans inhabit there is a reason to push back against this return to previous decades’ parenting, the drive not to be the so called neo-parent obsessed about things, supposedly helicopter parenting your kids, encasing them in bubble wrap; gone are the days of it takes a village to raise a child and the idea you can trust your village to help in raising your child instead routinely having to protect them from it. Having a high schooler born as early as 1998 or as late as 2001 and a middle schooler younger than that, Speer is old enough to have grown up in the shadow of Etan Patz and Adam Walsh, if nothing else seeing the TV movie detailing the tragedy of Steven Gregory Stayner and Timothy White, Polly Klaas and JonBenet Ramsey where too few short years before her oldest child’s birth to be forgotten, brushed under the rug. Considering closely speculation on just how Adam Walsh became pray for psychopath Odis Toole, his parents pieced together that while at a Florida Sears in 1981 they shopped while he entrained himself with a store’s video game display alongside some older boys, older boys became rowdy and loud asked to leave by store security guard, Adam 6, too scared to tell guards his parents were in the store, he wasn’t with them ejected from the store too, found decapitated, only thing left—his head. But all adults, adults in specific authoritative positions should be able to tell our kids what to do…have changed in terms of awareness; it’s not merely these old cases, the steady trickle through the years of missing, turned up dead children fueling words written here. Putting aside Jaycee Dugard at11 should have been able to walk the short way to her school bus, Shawn Hornbeck was no match for the gun Michael Devlin shoved in his face to gain his compliance riding home from a friend’s house or that Ben Ownby was shoved into a white van getting off his school bus, are the endless list of new cases yearly, when home isn’t safe the way it wasn’t for Polly Klaas, Elizabeth Smart, baby Lisa Irwin, fathers who’ve impeded the kidnappings of barely school age children. An unmistakable predator who pushed his way into a 13 year old’s home having followed her from school, fortunately able to fight him off, that was May 2016; by July same year store surveillance videos saw the attempted kidnapping of a 4 year old directly in front of mom. Paralleling a nearly identical years older case were a child fought off her would be kidnapper one aisle over from mom, child self-defense class credited with saving her life, letting her know what to do, problem: we need child self-defense, advanced stranger danger classes, but combat blogs by a parent who thinks every adult that crossed their child’s path should have carte blanche to tell them what to do; a Philadelphia abduction thwarted by screaming little brother, both 5 short years ago. It was 2 years ago a toddler was snatched out of his stroller, rescued by older siblings chasing him, his capture down local streets, gotten away from a disturbed teen, all happening when the babysitter turned her back for a minute; fast-forward to 2016 again, attempted kidnapping 13 year old dragged through the Florida Dollar General store, mother doing everything she can to stop him, peeping tom in Colorado caught on home surveillance footage eying teen through probably her bedroom window. Last year too was the year of creepy clowns spotted, reported across the south trying to lure kids with copious amounts of candy, wads of cash in Greenville South Carolina, chasing kids on their way to school in Macon and Dublin Georgia; clown standing in the road causing a car accident there. Graduating to social media threats aimed at schools in Philadelphia, keeping students in at recess location—Long Island, New York, a teen in Kentucky arrested for scaring people in a ditch; clown related Instagram posts out of Huston, Texas threatening to kidnap students, kill teachers. McDonald’s icon Ronald McDonald forced into keeping a low profile, police, cities broadcasting extra warnings, parents doubtlessly keeping their kids in doors, switching their traditional Halloween venue; luckily these clowns frightened children keeping them away, still causing the death of one teen during an altercation while wearing a clown mask. 2017 not without its news making cases, a few months into the new year and we’re hearing about the baby nearly kidnapped from a Dunkin Doughnuts in Philadelphia; following a story last month about a man arrested trying to beckon a 6 year old out of a Riverside California grocery store bathroom, post lingering there tempting her with a treat, thankfully under arrest. Switching gears slightly, technology today plays a huge role smartphone apps, social media pages redefining stranger danger potentially luring a Virginia teen to her death; another father who confronted his daughter’s would be kidnapper the very night he planned to take her after seeing her correspondence on her phone. You can’t help but wonder if Susan Speer is this ignorant about threats to children the moment they step out the door from random adults how diligent she is about informing her tween and teens about apps like kik, if a 30 year old wants to meet you, even in a public place don’t, rules for internet/smart phone usage I don’t want you talking to older people online, tell me if someone is sending you inappropriate things; then again having sons she doesn’t face the increased threat to girls, young women…. Highlighting a disturbing pattern: citizens who believe a person’s achievement in one area, reaching of an albeit fantastic goal, garnering the title, teacher, principal, coach, police officer, celebrity on reality TV even, renders them more trustworthy than the average person despite school exposed trends of ‘passing the trash;’ transferring problem teachers accused in sexual misconduct to different schools, many times equipped with glowing recommendations. Whether it’s the principal suspended post permitting drop out, explicit rapper Fetty Wap to film a music video including dancer on a poll, or the assistance principal arrested for the murder of a pregnant teacher allegedly to hide their affair, Honey Boo-boo family matriarch Mamma June dropping jaws via her extraordinary weight loss as The Young Turks Anna Kasparian reminded viewers while explaining why she was covering, an unusual for them story, less flattering headlines she was once at the center of concerning fiancé/husband Sugar Bear accused of molesting her children and she started out believing him. Repeat public response to Subway’s Jared seen as an icon, inspiration after losing 245 lbs. arrested, pleading guilty to child porn charges, crossing state lines to engage in commercial sex acts, underage sex with younger and younger girls; exposed by a friend who reported him to authorities hearing his inappropriate comments about middle school girls recording conversations for the FBI. Remember Oklahoma City cop Daniel Holtzclaw after years of raping, sexually assaulting women he pulled over, preying on individuals whose criminal records, prior criminal histories made them un-credible complainants, witnesses until he cross the wrong grandmother. Doctors molesting patients under the guise of exam, the influence of in office anesthetics, anesthesia; those were adults but not the gymnasts one USA gymnastics doctor is accused of abusing under the pretense of sports medicine. We have a self-admitted p*ssy grabbing president facing a lawsuit alleging rape of an underage, 13 year old girl for god sakes and a politician who has followed in his footsteps caught on tape groping a woman. But I want adults to unquestionably be able to tell my kids what to do and them, not only listen, but obey; I want someone likeminded to Mike Huckabee giving my son the Josh Duggar response when asked about appropriate boundaries with girls, calling pedophile and sexual predator tendencies youthful indiscretion…. Coming down from the most horrible, absolute worst scenario things that can happen to kids when dubious adults are permitted to tell them what to do, kids are conditioned to listen to adults with few restrictions, it quickly reaches past the ancient grouchy neighbor, the ‘pissy only man who dumped urine on a teen whether or not he vandalized the man’s lawn or the ‘Jimmy Carter look alike’ who started a confrontation with a local skateboarding teen waiting until half way through his accosting the young man to clearly articulate his point about which residents are allowed in skate area X, staunchly refusing to give the young man his board which the older person had snatched from him, only reason he was still hanging around, to by the end of video discover he wasn’t in the sectioned off skate park but the driveway and sidewalks beside it. Children, teens, young adults, nor their parents for that matter, can predict when they will be verbally attacked, physically intimidated, if not assaulted, easily something worse; hints their caution in broadly telling their kids to mindlessly obey authority; be it the ranting woman in the skate park who called police about teens allegedly cussing in said park (though video provides no evidence of that) the child screamed at by an ‘elder’ for selling candy outside a Target probably for a school function, fundraising for band equipment, field trips, 4H, maybe enough for groceries, the light bill at home. Gentleman who bought the $80 worth of candy to settle the confrontation sadly correct when he said if it had girl scout cookies, been a white girl selling them it probably would have been a different story; eliminating race, girl scout selling their cookies period would have netted the girl a pat on the head not a lecture about how she should be ashamed of herself, was breaking the law, police were on their way….. But bringing in only ruthlessly practical reality, extrapolating from the original authors point, teachers can’t teach, coaches can’t coach and managers can’t manage now; however, it has nothing to do with special snowflakes never taught to take direction, criticism, instruction from people outside their parents, allowed total disrespect, disregard for authority, rather their own ineptitude. As alluded to above her kids statistically had the benefit of pre-school, were normal not special needs, she’s of average intelligence herself all boiling down to, no one is going to handcuff her 3rd grade child for kicking a school resource officer in the course of a trip to the bathroom gone horribly wrong, hardly limited by both her children being past that age or taught better than to kick anyone, but singularly because blessedly, her children don’t have those neurological deficits manifesting in behavior problems. Thanks to listed factors complementing nicely her authority loving, always back the teacher no matter what attitude, no one is going to label her a problem adult, problem parent when she reminds them of her oldest son’s diagnosis and IEP, when she gets special ed. to test her second child for next grade readiness overriding his classroom teacher wanting to hold him back for his ADHD behavior exacerbated by a delayed medication adjustment courtesy of foot dragging by the local neurological, behavioral health center and backed up appointments, found first grade ready just so you know, or when she tells her 3rd son’s kindergarten teacher he doesn’t need extra help he needs to be taught like he’s never seen this stuff before because he hasn’t seen it before not having gone to pre-school, facts his kindergarten assessment clearly showed. Her child’s kindergarten teacher didn’t belittle him for his ‘messy’ handwriting that was simply beginner handwriting correctable with time practice and, most of all, encouragement; instead my friend’s little boy 2 years later still hates writing in part thanks to his encounter with said teacher. She doesn’t have to fall on her sword, humiliate herself explaining relentlessly she is LD, dyslexic and therefore cannot/should not help her children with subjects like math and English unless they want misspelled words and transposed numbers, depending on teachers to help, damned if she’s going to let her children with diagnoses suffer what she did; not to mention parents today less and less capable of helping their children with homework, regardless their intelligence, completed education level because of expanded things being taught in earlier grades parents never had, curriculum content they don’t remember. No one berates her for cussing, grown adult that she is, when slamming into the brick walls of incompetence, people who must be reminded she is the same age, just a year to 5 years younger than them therefore should be treated on equal footing with them, she never gets that frustrated, doesn’t combat that problem advocating for her children the way no one advocated for her. No one challenges her freedom of speech argument when she chooses to use all the words in the English language including swear words either because to do so is beneath her middle class standards versus poor working class persons or ‘out of place in a school;’ forget its last ditch effectiveness at getting these people’s attention, offending people who should be offended by their own ignorance, failing competence and the child’s life they will ultimately ruin if they continue down the path they are. She isn’t charged with understanding, making them understand picking her battles, that cussing comes with ADHD and she will not excessively punish her sons, any of them for being factually accurate or protesting, through using their words not their hands, BS at the hand of a teacher who deliberately frustrates them, provokes them, asks for chaos they encounter due to their inability to connect with children, compel them to want to behave, want to follow directions by possessing some knowledge of children, their development, perspective, sans fear, violence, threat of punishment. The plight of my friend dealing with her autistic and ADHD sons respectively, teaching all her sons to speak up for themselves lest they become victims like she, children she babysat for became…. it’s hardly the child’s fault when their teachers’ preferred method of classroom management is taping student’s mouths closed at one school in Texas for talking out of turn, talking too much, cutting off one student’s braid to get her to stop playing with it, the excuse for allegedly throwing another student’s, present at another school shoes in the trash, only for teacher one to still be teaching in the same class after reports of the impromptu haircut. When teachers are documented on video doing what this older teacher was doing to a kindergarten/first grade student for failing to seek permission to go to the bathroom, taking too long, playing too long in the bathroom, upon coming out he is lifted up, back shoved against the wall, grabbed by the face; then according to school witnesses, hauled into the bathroom for a loud, screaming rant heard and reported to officials by 3 lunch ladies. It’s the PTSD moment Dr. Drew Pinsky had right there on air at HLN remembering his own adjacent experience roughly the same age, too ashamed to tell, thinking it was his fault, never talking about it that proves with reverberating finality adults shouldn’t have that level of power over children. As if already detailed material hadn’t, in addition to the middle school teacher caught dumping pencil shavings from a pencil sharpener into a child’s mouth apparently because he was slouching, leaning back with his mouth open during the lesson, no proof he wasn’t still listening though. Having seen video and/or news stories depicting exactly what teachers are doing in the process of educating our children, dragging a 1st grader across the floor to the front office after he was ‘disruptive,’ reinstated after a legal battle citing improper, non-existent training, using a belt off their own pants to hit children supposedly breaking up an unseen fight, interrupting learning with terror ensuring nothing else got done that class period, confronting ‘unruly’ 3rd graders by telling them you plan to leave the classroom/school outside doors unlocked letting in a potential shooter to shoot or kill them….And that doesn’t include the disturbing, injurious violence students are subjected to by teachers, administrators—a 20 year veteran teacher kicking a 5 year old in the head for going to the bathroom without permission during nap time, like the 7 year old who received a broken, jaw, several missing teeth for being ‘disruptive,’ the teen who had to have his leg amputated post a fight where he was slammed to the ground, could not walk, was delayed medical attention for want of ‘adults’ realizing how serious it was, lying about events, video showing frame by frame what happened. What indeed does happen to documented special needs students in specialized schools or programs… Managers can’t manage currently absent what type, generation worker they’re dealing with chiefly because they, business owner/manager don’t have the foggiest idea what they are doing as evidenced by ‘reality shows’ Kitchen Nightmares, Tabitha’s Takeover, Bar Rescue on air sensations, alive and well in re-runs comprehending there are real businesses, real employees, real supervisors behind them; most who couldn’t function in a regular working environment and saw their ‘way out’ as opening their own business channeling the worst of The Devil Wears Prada, one secret behind the 50% new business failure rate. Managers can’t manage because the average ‘manager’ brought in to oversee a company, project, store doesn’t adequately understand product, inner workings, procedures exc. of the business in question, good/service they are trying to manage, marching in with extensive plans on how things are to be done going forward, failing to listen to employees who’ve been doing it 30 plus years; previous management position a McDonald’s, Starbucks, Wal-Mart and they’ve been tasked with managing a non-profit job placement facility, equally juxtaposed venue. Managers are abysmal at managing having long ago lost the battle with how to motivate their employees to do what they want, perform their best or see the value in how the boss wants things done; the Jetson’s infamous Mr. Spacely goes all the way back to 19 62 and things haven’t changed much. So many already dysfunctional moving parts before throwing into the mix this generation holding it’s unique set of indecipherable quarks. Factors key in millennial disconnect so prominently pronounced, because workers fluently using current technology don’t have to be the boss’ lapdog 40 hours a week to be productive, produce desired results; mangers/bosses who haven’t gotten over their incredulous jealousy at ‘how easy’ current generations have it, paradigms that refuse to shift, research data proving workers allowed to set their own hours, determine their own schedules, work from where they wish, take opportunities like flex time work longer and achieve more…
Reactions to ‘disciplinary issues,’ easily downgraded to things you run into while operating a school, perhaps the untold story of ‘school infractions,’ easily rephrased to common situations you should manage appropriately, but not take too seriously unless they involve safety, when you run a school, teach in a school, are a resource officer, aide in a school; our framing of incidents the missing piece to fully grasping spiking occurrences, ‘behavior problems,’ holding equal importance with subheadings a-la ‘the astronomical number of kids acting out, running around like maniacs in school,’ ‘engaging in egregious actions like hitting, kicking or spitting on teachers.’ Far less the impact of newfangled parenting low on discipline, boundaries, too much emphasizing children as special, communicating rules don’t apply to them and directly tied to our failing responses; no, not a call for more authoritah, more militaristic, police state style regulation of classrooms, in fact the opposite. Interesting viewing every one of the violent altercation headlines from the South Carolina student thrown across the classroom to the student shoved then choked by a teacher’s aide, educators weighed in through comment sections across the internet…Or understanding maybe the problem isn’t your child, it’s the rules, the setup itself that kindergarten, research shows, is rigged for girls based on a popularity contest between teacher and student, do they like your child or not, how good is your child at social graces, effort, following directions, cooperating with others; you’ll note too, the lion’s share of students constantly in trouble are boys arguably miserable, hating school when gotten in trouble for talking about shooting a dinosaur in a writing assignment, writing from the perspective of a Nazi soldier to the point of suspensions. Kindergarten isn’t what it was when we went half day, milk and cookie for snack, sequencing, dot to dots, ABC songs, clock reading and simple words the, that is, a, at and plenty of free organic play/learning time; replaced now by all day instruction with teacher led academics, sight words, writing journals, independent and buddy reading counting to 100 by intervals, 30 minute nap/quiet rest period and 15 minutes of recess at the end of the day for the article linked below’s school, after lunch for my friends kids currently and during their kindergarten year. For all the problems with bus lines generating national headlines shouldn’t we have come to the conclusion by now there is a need to change or eliminate bus lines, engage younger kids in Simon says, car songs, something to keep their hands and minds occupied not tempted to run around, resorting to hitting teacher when they try to threaten, manhandle them back in line, make standing like a statue a game. I saw a parent in Wal-Mart this week cleverly get her kids to walk straight and orderly out of the store using the tile on the floor, no screaming, yelling, threats of losing privileges, getting a spanking by telling them to pick a line of tiles and follow it. Or that the expectations for learning have drastically increased since any parent attended school translating into school environments where they are supposed to sit like little drones, rarely so much as twitching, teachers dearly wishing they could duct tape the little tikes to their chairs, yelled at, admonished if they wiggle the least little bit; my friend forced to tell her ADHD son’s teachers let him have a stress ball something small to put/ do with his hands and he’ll focus more, listen better, unknown is how many other boys, students generally, not ADHD would benefit from the same technique. Countering teacher agreement with Speer telling her she doesn’t know how many times she’s hand a 5 year old kindergartener when told to do something say ‘my mom/dad I don’t have to, you’re not my boss’ rending gasps from readers, but question, do you have to sound like a boss to get that kindergarten child to do what you want? Can’t you say to a child excited about show and tell, story time, art, whatever: I understand you’re excited about…but for that to happen I need you to sit on the carpet with everyone else? Use phrases known to entice kids to cooperate, give them some ownership, control over what’s happening in a place where adults control everything, kids possess no, few choices; think: can you be a big boy/girl and show my how you…?…There remain multiple articles, studies, research endeavors proving select things taught in school turned out to be dangerous applied to the real, working world. But I’m still going to convey the message to my kids these adults have ultimate power over them in light of what Bill Cosby did to of age and underage young women, forget Roger Ailes, Bill O’Riley, Dennis Hastert’s molestation of high school boys, boarding school sex scandals, the Seattle mayor accused of decades ago abuse, pedophilia in churches, anyone else tempted to shout I don’t think so? Imagine what good would have come of adults speaking up about Jerry Sandusky and the oddities they saw, if students had been taught to be brave enough to report the teacher duct taping their eyes and mouth, putting roaches on their face, making them eat things that tasted funny (his own semen on crackers); horrific abuse might not have gone on for 30 odd years… Of course it’s ok for kids to fail and they should under minor, everyday life circumstances; still this is where the author’s stories don’t line up with the crux of her argument, main point, adults all and everywhere in her children’s life should be able to tell them what to do their response: to snap to, a complete non sequitur to her encounter with the lab partner mom who just wanted to fix it somehow post both their sons flunking their lab project by failing to turn it in on time. It has nothing to do with the dorm mate who falls to pieces because ‘mommy wasn’t there to manage their life’ and utterly disregards anything else that could be going on with that person, i.e. onsets of several mental illnesses known to strike this age group, significantly undermines survey collected data by college students whose biggest worries are about incurred debt and will there be a job for me to get upon obtaining my degree. Addressing trend commentary regarding the uptick in students seeking colligate mental health services and self-reported personal crisis, A- did researchers bother to define crisis in the relaxed, slang terms students did, did they again bother to check in with students as little as a week, a month later to see if what they termed a crisis was still effecting them, reporting suggests not. B- God forbid we’ve finally made marginal headway in destigmatizing mental health problems, seeking mental health treatment no longer taboo; one colligate center for mental health executive director dismissing right out of hand the Speer assertion explaining everything from college being more accessible brings lower income students availing themselves of first time access to mental health services ever, to there being more services available on campus than in the surrounding community, concluding saying you don’t get a 38% increase in demand for services from ‘a lack of resilience’ and warned against criticizing them for lacking a characteristic, judging them for seeking help naming it victim blaming, he would be more accurate to call it parent shaming…. Far more dangerously insidious than she’s smart enough to fully comprehend she’s being, we think there are no, only positive consequences to the type of parenting Speer advocates, to the old school, to children minding society’s adults all (note the expansion to every social ill listed in the comment section by readers of the original article linked below)—suppositions proven totally untrue. Take little Zachary Williams (pronounced za-car-ree) removed from school by a confused grandfather because school staff mistakenly thought the man was his afterschool care, thankfully this was simply a confused grandfather not a predator taking advantage; however, his mother was perplexed as to why he would go off with a complete stranger, confusion deepening when she asked him why and he smiles shyly saying I don’t know, not answering at all. Readers may be asking by now why mom is so muddled arriving at the conclusion she told the kindergartener to mind his teachers the same way he minds mom and dad, a seemingly reasonable request, age appropriate explanation of behavior expectations during school, until something like this happens. Upon seeing stories like Zachary’s, we immediately go to either that would never happen at my child’s school citing policy or the recurring parent mantra ‘my child would never do that to be shocked by Dateline, other news show set ups putting kids and their parents to the test producing negative results to the exact contrary of what parents swore their children had been taught, life lessons believed mastered. Further we’ve deluded ourselves believing those instances in childhood, the ingrained respect for adult authority has no, only positive lasting effects on our kids once they mature to adulthood, again untrue; who remembers the 10-12 year old phone scam were someone calls a fast food restaurant claiming to be the police asking mangers to call in a female employer for a strip search on allegations of stealing an ordeal for one victim profiled by Primetime that included jumping jacks, naked spanking and oral sex on the male manger, scenarios playing out across the country were even the subject of a Law and Order Special Victims Unit episode. Psychologists speculating, in regards to the compliance, that the regimented structure of the fast-food work environment made people easy to manipulate, younger workers in particular; victim’s response to both the reporter and by extension online commentary pegging her stupid, asking how she could let someone do that to her, was to say she was taught when an adult tells you to do something you do it, important to remember she was maximum age 18 when it happened likely on her first job. Dovetailing into the sexual exploitation of teen fast-food workers by their managers who felt forced into sex to keep their jobs; it’s the argument in favor of corporal punishment, scoffed at correlations between childhood spankings and domestic violence, protestations that children grown into adults know the difference contrasted beside abuse cases rampant even in teen relationships. We keep ignoring reincarnations of the Milgram experiment, where people would do terrible things if a person in high enough authority told them to, not in a research lab but in the real world, habitual patterns of bad things resulting from our pathological respect for authority, obsession with respect…. Facing brutal practicality head on talking about kids and failure we must come to the realization then failure doesn’t carry the same connotation it did back in the day, small failures inconsequential on the road of life compared to having an arrest record, getting into drugs, going to jail, having a felony on your record; absent those things you may not able to ‘lose your shit pick it up and move forward’ treating it like a recipe for an omelet, isn’t that what the 2008 financial crisis taught multitudes of older workers thrust back into the job market? Once more don’t parents, we, larger society own part of what we think is happening to emerging adults; their lack of maturity, their ‘fragile’ sensibilities not in terms of helicopter parenting but in the cutthroat nature we’ve cultivated around college admissions, not boiled down to the best person with a mix of academic achievements and extracurricular activities getting in, but taking that to its ultimate extreme, almost the sole, entire reason parents are trying, if at all possible, for the posh pre-schools, a certain elementary school feeding to the ‘it’ junior high/middle school, high school, enhancing their chances of getting into an Ivy League college, nationally famous college, perceived leg up in getting a job, college degrees fulling the market at such a rate where you went to college mattering more than many older adults might think. Speer and the rest buying her mantra painfully oblivious to facts these are parents holding 1, 2 college degrees working jobs, not careers, professions that barely make ends meet, don’t allow for a college fund for their kids, these are parents still paying off their own student loans, maybe they didn’t finish high school and their offspring are not only on track to finish but have a chance at college, something they never had. Don’t we own, as parents, our children’s fear of failure in a different way; in the big deal we made out of good grades, common phrases we drilled into our kids about what we’d do to them if they ever drank, did drugs, think pot, came home pregnant, got a girl pregnant, failed a class, instilling the concrete idea we would stop loving them, shun them, hate them if they did any of those things and more besides? But counselor commenting said kids need to know they can be human, can fail; yet the failure they can’t handle is the very failure they shouldn’t have to, losing your love, which they won’t but you didn’t make that clear enough to them. Catalyst behind babies born, left in toilets, shoeboxes, trashcans; parents who wouldn’t have been happy at the news but would have preferred it to their teen’s actions, them spending years in jail for killing their child because they didn’t know what else to do. The very failure they can’t handle is one that shouldn’t be and isn’t covered in the ‘adulting’ coping class, where minor mistakes can derail everything never to recover, be able to reasonably support oneself. Don’t we as parents, community members always calling everyone without a job a dead beat, degenerate, unless they are old or disabled, then own the pressure we place on students to do well, never fail, sending them off knowing just how much it costs us to grant them higher educations; aren’t we partially then responsible for the high suicide rate, the pressure students put on themselves going to institutions a-la MIT? Don’t we own, society wide, the problem, not regarding harsher analysis of helicopter parenting, flagging initiatives to stop it for the greater good, but collective contributions to the broader issue in our unending insistence on negatively stereotyping this generation to the nth degree, relentlessly calling them unskilled, stupid, useless, primarily because they do things differently, house different priorities than generation yesterday, directly feeding into what they think they can and can’t do, the skills they are programed to believe they are lacking but learned differently; independent how many are working, have careers not merely jobs but struggle to get ahead thanks to student loan debt, work in the gig economy where nap and game rooms, free coffee are their only perks in lieu of paychecks, given worthless equity packages in ‘the company?’ Astronomically important on the other side don’t we own, as a society, individual business owners, hiring managers, if you are, the fact that increased demands are placed on k-12 education, college to fulfill tasks it was never meant to while employers refuse to engage in the most rudimentary job training consistently complaining they can’t find workers? Don’t we, society, the public own the reality getting a job is about every possible thing under the sun but can you do the job, are you the most easily trained person for the position; instead eager employees are constantly caught in the catch 22 of need experience or certifications to make degree serviceable in the job market, no place to get those certifications, experience, employers who refuse to pay the full price for say child psychologists holding PHD’s choosing interns as an alternative, potential employees told they will be bored with the job, the thousand and one legal, harmless, silly things we can be fired for….. Yes it is ‘common sense’ there is no running around pools due to the concrete installed to prevent slippage and the serious injury you could do yourself if you run, slip and face plant, yes that then makes pool dad an undeniable jerk, difficult person to deal with but, when, trailing back to the 1950’s did, ‘wondrous society’ never mean having to deal with difficult people, how millennial, gen Y, snowflake can you get?…. Maybe if all rules made as much common or otherwise sense as the pool dad scenario, we would have far less rule breakers in society big or small, but too many city and state laws fall under what could easily be called the pet peeve ordinances… But for people, parents like Susan Speer it’s still all hail ‘the rules;’ maybe for the sake of not having one more rule to both follow and enforce it’s time pool surfaces got an upgrade similar to the padding of pre-school playground equipment turf , maybe it’s time we stop couching lawsuits as frivolous against McDonalds or Starbucks over serious hot coffee injuries equal to 3rd degree burns resulting from flimsy 5 cents to make cups and 2 cents to make lids that collapse and break so easily, in McDonald’s case serving warm beverages well above a safe degree level, and made the cups better, lids fit properly. Maybe for the sake of our future not looking like a scene for the D movie flick Demolition Man fining people money for violations of the verbal moralities code to satisfy blue haired old ladies thinking they are enhancing their chances of getting into heaven, grumpy old men just mad they couldn’t get away with sagging, flip flops in their youth due to social norms on ‘respectability;’ that fictional city letting loose a dangerous criminal with the opposite of rehabilitation, mental reprogramming to deal with their one remaining problem ‘degenerates’ who lived off their grid, occasionally surfaced to ‘steal’ food because they would rather keep intact their freedom of choice than surrender all will to what state, federal government, school or parent says is best, a little questioning, fighting back against arbitrary rules isn’t a bad thing….
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