Grow Up, Parents

September 1, 2015

The post “Grow Up, Little Girl” reminded me of other school scenarios that have annoyed me.

1)      About 25 years ago a high school in Illinois banned male students from wearing earrings, because gang members wore earrings to identify their gangs, and fights were likely to break out. A student’s father took the school to court to allow the student to wear his earring. Why didn’t the kid’s dad say, “They’re trying to keep the students safe. Put in the earring after school.”?

2)      In school systems everywhere there is the perennial flap about dress codes. “Stifling individuality!” scream some students and/or parents.

Do they yell about team uniforms? Sports, band, pep squad…everybody wears the same thing. Go figure.

My favorite instance was the protest against the dress code at a middle-school’s Parent-Teacher Conferences. I don’t know what entertained me more: The fact that it was parents, and not students, who were protesting; or that one of the picketers was wearing khakis and a solid-color shirt—incidentally, just what the dress code was requiring. She didn’t appear to me to be too stifled.

If there’s a point to this post, I guess it’s, Before you make it all about you, look at the bigger picture. Quit giving the school a hard time because you think you’re the only one who matters.

But mostly it’s just me being crabby.