By Troy Brownfield
5.02.02
"All
right, Miss Kournekova, you may go to the dance." |
Who's Watching the Kids, and Why Are We Letting Them?:
In Europe, the Pope called an emergency summit because
some priests can't seem to keep their hands (among other things)
to themselves. Earlier this week, The Today Show featured
a story about two-year-old boy who disappeared at a park after
his step-father left him alone for fifteen minutes while getting
drinks. In Indianapolis, the Avon High School wrestling coach
struck a deal to do community service in exchange for the
dropping of animal cruelty charges that he engendered for
biting the head off of a live bird in front of his players.
In California, a complaint was raised after members of the
faculty lifted the skirts of girls going into dance to check
and see what kind of underwear they had on; bra checks were
conducted as well, all in view of other faculty and police/security
officers who did nothing. An 11-year-old girl in Pennsylvania
was suspended for making "death threats" against her teacher
for making a stick-figure drawing with an arrow through its
head on the back of a paper that had gotten a D; the girl
noted that the drawing was just her way of dealing with being
angry. This was all within the last ten days.
The obvious question: what the fuck is wrong with people?
With all the grousing that comes out of certain figures regarding
how the media affects children, am I the only one that's aghast
that we aren't able to do a better job of protecting the children
from idiots, reactionaries and predators that carry the label
of "authority figures"? Let's break it down . . .
For all the lip service (ba-dump-bump) that the Catholic Church
is giving to the molestation problem these days, I'm still
shocked that they haven't built a consensus about how to handle
it. Between mentions of "Zero Tolerance" and "Three Strikes"
and all, I've been very curious as to how saying "You'd touched
the kid? Get the fuck out!" can't be an answer. Maybe I could
put it into language that they're used to repeating: Thou
shalt not touch a child inappropriately. Thou shalt not view
a child in states of undress. Thou shalt keep it in thy pants.
Thou shalt not rub thy pants while viewing a child appropriately,
inappropriately, dressed or undressed. Thou shalt kill thyself
if thou can't get through the day without rubbing thyself
whilst thinking of children. Okay, maybe it needs some work,
but it's a little better than saying, "Hmmm, he diddled a
kid in Boston, so let's see if he doesn't in San Diego."
Regarding the two-year-old who was left alone for fifteen
minutes, that's just blatant stupidity. I don't care how inexperienced
of a parent you are; you should know better than leaving a
friggin' kid alone. Admittedly, the guy said that the toddler
was playing with some other kids in view of an adult. STILL,
that's YOUR responsibility, not some stranger on a playground.
I've seen moms in the grocery store juggle two toddlers, an
infant in a car seat, a shopping cart, about $200 dollars
worth of groceries, and still do the job; I don't think that
it's asking too much to take your kid along while you grab
a couple of sodas.
Going to the Avon wrestling guy, I think that I've abundantly
covered that in the past. He NOW claims that he bit the head
off of the bird to "get the team fired up". Really? So showing
them "Hoosiers" or "Braveheart" or playing "The 1812 Overture"
didn't work out, and he decided to go with oral animal decapitation.
Think of how well they'd done if he'd bitten the head off
of a cow.
With regard to the school dance in California, that one just
astounds me. The full story can be viewed at http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/04/30/life.underwear.reut/index.html.
How anyone can go through the education and training it takes
to get that job and not realize that they're crossing a line
is beyond me. Seriously, even if a girl was wearing a thong
with a formal, who's going to notice? The type of whirly-twirly
dancing that would reveal such a thing went out when the Swing
revival died, so I'm guessing that the only people who would
know would be the girl herself and her potentially lucky date.
And really, who would it be hurting? Hanes? Please.
The incident with the eleven-year-old and the stick-drawing
is another example of school-shooting paranoia gone too far.
If I had a nickel for every time that I've based a doomed
stick figure or cannon fodder fictional character on someone
that I didn't like, I would have already bought Hawaii. I'm
not saying that an eleven-year-old is incapable of violence,
but it seems like most educators are now operating with blinders.
The Columbine folks missed so many obvious clues (the little
things like hate sites, backyard bomb-building, and a kid
actually warning the police) that other places are overcompensating
and freaking out over what is normal kid behavior. A healthy
kid can tell another kid "I hate you", and play ball with
him an hour later. It happens. Likewise, a healthy kid can
wish vicarious stick-figure death on a teacher, and grow up
to run a really funny website.
My unifying thought is this: with all of the pressure put
on kids, between the drive for higher education and the mad
rush of activities to the increased paranoia over security
and more, we're really in a position where we can fuck our
kids up big-time. With all this scrambling and overcompensating,
we keep forgetting one VITAL thing. Our society doesn't just
LISTEN to its children. WHY is a certain kind of underwear
"wrong" if no one sees it? WHY is a drawing considered the
immediate equivalent to violence? WHY did it take so long
for anything to happen with the church?
Kids try to tell us what they think. And by and large, we
don't listen. I had lots of opinions when I was younger, and
I still do. Some of my opinions have changed with time, age
and information, but that didn't make my earlier opinions
any less valid at the time. Kids, from teens on down, are
subject to the shifting whims of the adult population, a population
that if you look real closely at things like the Middle East,
our elected officials, and the continued popularity of "Baby
Bob", doesn't always make the best decisions themselves. Kids
do need protected from the ACTUAL dangers that are out there,
but they also need to be able to tell us things that they
need or things that hurt them or things that they need help
with. As adults, we should listen. And think. We can always
tell 'em when they're finished that they're wrong.
That's all for today. Got get some free comics Saturday 
Troy Brownfield is the Editor-in-Chief of Shotgun Reviews.
He's going to teach his children to question everything, which
should make them real popular with their grade school teachers.
Email him at psikotyk@aol.com.
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