Recommended Reading

Perhaps you have heard about this Facebook by Kelly Guthrie Raley, a Teacher of the Year at a Florida middle school.  For those of you who do not have access to Facebook, below is the entire rant, dated 8:05 A.M., February 15, 2018, the day after the Parkland massacre (emphases mine):

Okay, I’ll be the bad guy and say what no one else is brave enough to say, but wants to say. I’ll take all the criticism and attacks from everyone because you know what? I’m a TEACHER. I live this life daily. And I wouldn’t do anything else! But I also know daily I could end up in an active shooter situation.

Until we, as a country, are willing to get serious and talk about mental health issues, lack of available care for the mental health issues, lack of discipline in the home, horrendous lack of parental support when the schools are trying to control horrible behavior at school (oh no! Not MY KID. What did YOU do to cause my kid to react that way?), lack of moral values, and yes, I’ll say it-violent video games that take away all sensitivity to ANY compassion for others’ lives, as well as reality TV that makes it commonplace for people to constantly scream up in each others’ faces and not value any other person but themselves, we will have a gun problem in school. Our kids don’t understand the permanency of death anymore!!!

I grew up with guns. Everyone knows that. But you know what? My parents NEVER supported any bad behavior from me. I was terrified of doing something bad at school, as I would have not had a life until I corrected the problem and straightened my ass out. My parents invaded my life. They knew where I was ALL the time. They made me have a curfew. They made me wake them up when I got home. They made me respect their rules. They had full control of their house, and at any time could and would go through every inch of my bedroom, backpack, pockets, anything! Parents: it’s time to STEP UP! Be the parent that actually gives a crap! Be the annoying mom that pries and knows what your kid is doing. STOP being their friend. They have enough “friends” at school. Be their parent. Being the “cool mom” means not a damn thing when either your kid is dead or your kid kills other people because they were allowed to have their space and privacy in YOUR HOME. I’ll say it again. My home was filled with guns growing up. For God’s sake, my daddy was an 82nd Airborne Ranger who lost half his face serving our country. But you know what? I never dreamed of shooting anyone with his guns. I never dreamed of taking one! I was taught respect for human life, compassion, rules, common decency, and most of all, I was taught that until I moved out, my life and bedroom wasn’t mine…it was theirs. And they were going to know what was happening because they loved me and wanted the best for me.

There. Say that I’m a horrible person. I didn’t bring up gun control, and I will refuse to debate it with anyone. This post wasn’t about gun control. This was me, loving the crap out of people and wanting the best for them. This was about my school babies and knowing that God created each one for greatness, and just wanting them to reach their futures. It’s about 20 years ago this year I started my teaching career. Violence was not this bad 20 years ago. Lack of compassion wasn’t this bad 20 years ago. And God knows 20 years ago that I wasn’t afraid daily to call a parent because I KNEW that 9 out of 10 would cuss me out, tell me to go to Hell, call the news on me, call the school board on me, or post all over FaceBook about me because I called to let them know what their child chose to do at school…because they are a NORMAL kid!!!!!

Those 17 lives mattered. When are we going to take our own responsibility seriously?

Related reading: Is It Really Possible for Parents to Be Friends With Their Kids? (dated June 22, 2016).  Excerpt (emphases mine):

…According to family historian Stephanie Coontz, the idea that parents and kids would even want to be friends is a relatively new idea, one that emerged along with “more democratic child-rearing practices” in the mid-20th century.

“Parents today really want their kids to be individuals — they try and shape their values and decision-making skills, but they back off from the idea that they know better what these kids should be, should do, should think,” says Coontz, the director of research and education for the Council on Contemporary Families. “And that’s a tremendous change from most of history, when parents really did think … their kids would be safest if they obeyed them or followed in their footsteps, or at least followed their instructions for how to do better.”

[...]

…[S]ocial support, possibly the central component of a healthy friendship, is just one part of the job for parents, who also have to devote their energy to shaping a human into a functional adult — meaning that affection and intimacy are often bound up in other things, like rules and boundaries.

“I think there are elements of friendship. Parent-child relationships can be warm, accepting, responsive, trusting,” agrees Judith Smetana, a psychology professor at the University of Rochester who studies child development. “But at some point, the buck stops with the parents,” she says. “Making sure your child stays safe and out of trouble — sometimes that means pulling rank, saying something’s not acceptable, in a way a friend probably wouldn’t or couldn’t do.”…

Read the rest HERE.