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What Are You Doing To Your Children?

I try to be an observer; a recorder. My aim is to detach, and report what I see as I view it, forming opinions and offering conclusions for debate, hoping some will stop occasionally and think, “perhaps he’s got a point.”

Sometimes it fails to work that way. Just occasionally I get angry. So angry I could choke the life out of people so sanctimonious, so morally absurd, that I feel the world would truly be better off without them.

No, I’m not discussing the George Bush’s or Dick Cheney’s of this nation. One expects hypocrisy, and disdain of common humanity, from politicians. Choking to death is probably too good for them anyway.

The subject in question was highlighted this week when the board of the Mascoutah Middle School in southern Illinois, who have banned “public displays of affection” by students, ordered schoolgirl Megan Coulter to serve two detention sessions after saying goodbye for the weekend to two friends, by giving each of them a hug.

According to the school:

““Displays of affection should not occur on the school campus at any time. It is in poor taste, reflects poor judgment, and brings discredit to the school and to the persons involved.”

America, when you sink to this level of depravation, you are not only sick, you are terminally ill.

This is where your sanctimonious Christianity has led you. Physical affection has become a sin; an undesirable. It’s fine to play violent video games, watch fellow humans tortured on shows like “24”, but don’t dare to show the love of friendship or you risk being ostracized.

I think it was Jesus of Nazareth who said, “Suffer little children to come unto me.”

In America today, he would be arrested for pedophilia.

For three years I have driven forty grade school kids to school on a big yellow bus. My kids are not the athletic-tutored, good-Christian-family orientated, swots of middle class America. Those kids don’t ride the school bus. Mommy drives them to school in the fancy, latest model, Toyota Landcruiser with individual DVD screens in the back so her “little darlings” can watch their favorite program on the ride to school.

My kids don’t have parents like that. In fact, many of them don’t have parents at all, or if they have, they’re elsewhere doing anything but taking responsibility for their offspring, who are likely living with grandparents, other ‘relatives’, or a ‘babysitter’.

Half the kids on my bus get little physical affection, some only suffer abuse, a few just have that look of hopeless resignation you’ll occasionally see on the faces of children from the less affluent regions of Africa.

While training to drive a school bus we were told, “Don’t ever touch a child. Not EVER.” Most of my fellow trainees immediately responded with nods of understanding. It was dangerous even to pat a child’s head, or comfort any distress.

I’m sorry, America, but I don’t subscribe to your narrow-minded, immature, and misplaced ideas that affection is perverted. I love my kids; all forty of them. They may be the most unruly, snotty-nosed, often dirty and ill-kempt bunch of Fagan’s outlaws in the country, but they’re kids who need love and affection. If they want to give their bus driver a hug when they board the bus, they’re hugged in return. For some it may be the only hug they’ll get all day.

What are you trying to do to your kids, America?

Somehow I think the Christ that you worship so falsely would turn his back and walk away from your hypocrisy.

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11 Replies to “What Are You Doing To Your Children?”

  1. Well said, RJ.

    Yesterday I was over the Pennines at a hug-fest in Yorkshire.

    Husbands, wives fathers, mothers, grandfathers, brothers, sisters, cousins, brothers-in-law, sisters-in-law, freinds and neighbours all unashamedly and spontaniously took part in this hug-fest ‘orgy’.

    However, we the perverted participants choose to call our ‘carryings on’ a funeral. My baby brother’s funeral. (Delay due to post mortem problems).

    I actually feel pity for people who are afraid to show public, physical affection. They don’t know what they’re missing. It’s a little something called LOVE. True love in fact. You know, the sex and/or lust free variety.

    As for the Nazarene carpenter’s son’s relavent quote, I’m pretty sure his actual (recorded) words were:”I never knew you.”

  2. It’s not only the prohibition of affection that is indicative of a sick society. A fair number of schools now prohibit games of tag. Some only allow organized games, rather than the rag-tag form of entertainment that was the norm a relatively few years ago.

    We’re becoming a nation ruled by fear, whether it’s of the terrorist, the pedophile, or of life.

  3. Dodge Ball when they throw it hard against the weak ones seems to still be available.

    Do you have a couple hardcover copies of Even Little Sparrows? My neighbor is a real animal lover – she might even leave the window open in the winters so her cat can be free- and I’d like to buy one for her too.

  4. Well, they can’t encourage the show of love and affection – what if those kids grow up to be soldiers – the US may need them to kill ! (Substitute “will” for “may”.) What would happen if they grew up filled with a love and compassion for humanity ?

  5. I found myself crying reading your post , R.J. For all the unhugged kids. I’d just been writing a short story about parental abuse where the only time the person was touched in childhood was by the flying fists of her father, so your post struck a chord. At times, the only good touching is at school, or on school buses where a hug will heal the body for just one glorious minute.
    OMG what in HIS/HER name is the USA coming to? Evil lurks in the hearts of the politicians and school boards.

  6. People called me crazy back when I pulled my children out of school. Maybe but I think I’d have been crazier to leave them in school with the kind of nuts we have running them.

    As long as John & Jane Q. Public keep tolerating this kind of looney-toon stuff it will only get worse.

  7. Anan – you scamper through blogs like a deer through the woods. Now you see it, now you don’t. I’m glad you’ve surfaced again.

    TOB – a sad time for you, hopefully made bearable by loving family and friends.

    Al – yes, fear mostly engendered by, or through, the media who feast on violent and perverted crimes, making them appear everyday events rather than the rare occurrences they really are.

    Flimsy – attacking the weakest toughens them up. Can’t have them sniveling and winging now, can we?

    Unfortunately, ‘Sparrows’ was only ever available in paperback, never in hardback, and all my spare copies were long ago distributed, but you can order direct from the publisher (the cheapest way). You’ll find the link on the ELS website ‘catalog’ page.

    Twilight – better they grow up with a chip on their shoulder, a grudge against the world. A good soldier is a man without compassion. Sadly, I think the real reason for such a stupid rule as this is simply ‘political correctness’, though I have to admit I’ve never really grasped the definition.

    WWW – I hope your stories will eventually be available for us all to read. It’s easy to cry over kids, particularly those who are deprived of the basic needs – love and affection. They’ll survive intact the lack of almost everything else, but those ingredients are vital to a kid’s mental wellbeing.

    Flimsy – ELS is over 300 pages. I hope it’s a robust printer. 🙂

    NYM – I admire any parent who tackles home-schooling. It’s no mean feat. I wouldn’t criticize any parent for not feeling up to it, but for those who are I am convinced it is better for the child, especially given today’s schools.

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