One of my favorite Halloween costumes ever was a sign of my mother’s love.
She spent weeks sewing a Godzilla costume; she even engineered a series of rings and twine to keep my tail from dragging the ground. It was rather difficult riding the bus to school as the King of the Monsters, but I succeeded. It’s been more than 50 years ago, but I’m reasonably sure I made my first grade class and the playground into my own personal Tokyo.
Miss Lois put a lot of time and effort into that costume, and it was fun. I enjoyed it, I’m reasonably sure some of the other kids enjoyed it, and whether they would admit or not, I’m sure my teachers did as well. I even won the first place costume award at the harvest festival that night, as I recall.
But even as a little kid, I knew it was all in fun. My mother made the costume for my enjoyment, recognizing that it was just a costume. She wasn’t affirming my decision to be a destructive monster (beside, I never needed a costume or radioactive breath to be destructive.)
I thought about my Godzilla suit the other day when I saw a story about a child who identified as a fox, and was allowed to act like one in school.
The report I saw involved a 12 year old boy in a California (of course!) school. He decided to be a fox. His parents affirmed and even financed his decision to be a fox, and had no problems with him crawling around class on all fours, disrupting class, and as defined by laws for humans, sexually harassing female students (since he behaved as a fox, not as a human being, he wasn’t punished).
The identity crisis came about after the schools in that community continued pushing classes on sexual fluidity and ways to help children understand their true gender and identity.
Thankfully, when I made a quick check of area schools, there were no furry programs and no furries. There were apparently some cases from time to time involving children recreating what they saw on television or online, but no taxpayer funded litterboxes or doggy beds in classrooms., I was rather reassured to hear an unequivocal “no” when it came to making concessions for alternative fantasy lifestyles.
I am ancient and decrepit enough to remember when school was about learning, not identifying or exploring or being taught guilt and self-hatred for being a white, male heterosexual. I’m hard-pressed to remember anything about sex being discussed in a classroom, outside of the sex education courses approved by our parents. If there was no legitimate reason, such as education or a (rare) disciplinary issue, our teachers didn’t discuss sex.
I know there are teachers, administrators and even school boards out there who feel the same way today, but I also know that they can be beaten into silence by a lawsuit-happy system that’s been in power for years, and has no intention of giving up one iota of control.
Our state never should have needed a law prohibiting boys and girls from swapping bathrooms, any more than it should have had to pass a law that makes sure qualifications, not skin color or sexual orientation, determine who gets hired. Yet sadly we have seen those selfsame laws being passed, not out of grandstanding, but because some school systems have taken it upon themselves to push particular social platforms when they should have been pushing book knowledge.
But getting back to the furry issue.
I have a sneaking suspicion that many of today’s mental health problems come from children being raised by electronic devices provided by parents who are so hung up in their own electronic devices that they see their children more as pets than gifts from God. Maybe that’s harsh, but if the shoes fits, then I suggest some supporting insoles, Cinderella.
We do live in a scary age, but there is no need for kid to be in constant contact with their parents; that’s why I applaud the steps taken by so many school systems to isolate students from their phones during the day. The same folks who fuss about kids not being able to call mom if there’s a school shooter are sometimes the same ones squalling that increasing security at schools is not the answer, since that would put “more guns in schools.” Albeit the additional security comes from people who are trained in how to use firearms, as well as other methods of deescalating threats, but let’s not confuse a good panic by adding facts into the mix. What a frightened mother is going to do if a shooter is inside a school is beyond me. A trained officer, however, should be able to protect all the children. But arming teachers and having gun-totin’ guards is not a solution, in their eyes, since that would mean “more guns in schools.”
Phones are like firearms, the evil is not in the tool, but the tool user. A cell phone in the hands of a hormonally-enraged teenager can produce lifelong ramifications for everyone involved, whether out of spite, a misplaced sense of fun or just curiosity. A phone is a distraction during the school day, if for no other reason than that a bored kid can and will explore the chaotic wilderness of the World Wide Web when he or she should be learning something, where there are far more predators hunting than there are outside the average playground.
It’s funny how grades have been rising and student behavior improving in just the short amount of time that so many schools adopted a no phone policy.
Now, if their parents would take a hint and be better monitors of what their kids are browsing – and I do know some folks who do watch their kids like hawks – we might have a little more hope for the next generations.
Instead, unfortunately, some of the same parents who are terrified of being attacked for being intolerant of the latest foolish fad seem to need to show that their child is better than the others. Hence, they say children “need” phones and constant access to their parents.
I understand there are times when a child truly needs a phone. Some have medical issues. Some are latchkey children, and it’s a different world than when I brought myself home from school and did chores. There are monsters out there now, monsters that were few and far between not many years ago, and they are enabled by digital communication. Those monsters, by the way, are just waiting for the next TikTok bathroom video.
I’m a firm believer that many of today’s ills could be resolved if parents would actually parent, instead of being a best friend who supplies an iPhone and Internet service. My parents could not have cared less what “all the other kids” had or did or said. I was their child, and therefore subject to their rules and their love.
That child I mentioned out west? His parents are almost strident in their “love” for their child. That’s why they gave him a litterbox at home, let him eat out of a bowl, and allow him to run free. They say they love him.
I know my parents loved me; my Godzilla suit was just one example. However, because they loved me, they taught me the difference between fantasy and real life.
That’s real parental love, and you can’t find it in a phone screen.
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