My cruel and hateful opinions of school spending

Apparently, I have very unpopular opinions.  Like the time I posted on the city website that maybe the fire trucks shouldn't drive parade speed through residential areas at 11:00pm with lights and sirens blaring just because the baseball team got home and was accused of hating local teenagers.  (Really?! Firetrucks waking me up in the middle of the night, and I'm supposed to assume it means good news?)

So here's what I stepped in this time.  Two teenage girls were detassling when they were killed. Somehow they came into contact with an irrigator and they and several others were shocked, and the 2 girls died.  It is horrible and tragic.  And for all of the other kids there who saw it, it was undoubtedly traumatic.  I got a text message from the school that said "Due to detassling accident counseling is available at the junior high.."  An hour later I got another one that said, "Information about accident on (city website) - school has no info."  I checked the city website and it said, in part, that the school counselors were at the jr high to help any local students who may have witnessed anything horrifying.

So while I am very glad that kids from town who might have seen something are getting counseling, I really just have to wonder why it falls on the school to offer it.  And I posted that sentiment on facebook. Why does the school have to pay for counseling for these kids who saw something traumatic outside of school?  And then a holy shitstorm opened up because apparently what I said was "Fuck all these kids my tax dollars shouldn't pay for anything and they don't need counseling anyway."  Which is odd because that's not what I said at all.

A nearby town immediately set up counseling in a city building.  I applaud them.  Our town did not do that.  Our town did not call all the local therapists (I can think of one right off the top of my head) to come down to the library, and bus the kids straight there.  No, the school did it.  The same school that fired the jr high band teacher 2 years ago.  The same school that raised the price of school lunches this year.  The same school that pleads poverty if you dare ask about any advanced programs.  So I have to wonder why the school was the responsible party for this counseling.  Local churches could have done it; aren't pastors supposed to be trained as counselors?  The city could have done it.  Ideally, the goddamned detassling company should have done it since the kids were killed on their watch.  But somehow, of all the unrelated institutions, the school was left holding the bag.  And people see this as the natural order of things.

Also, just to nitpick, I really do have a problem with schools involving themselves at all with non-school-related issues.  I think it's a huge overreach when a school disciplines students for things like cyber bullying, or drinking, or even just when they involve themselves in things that have nothing to do with school.  I know a parent who got a call from her kid's principal alerting her to the fact that her daughter may be a lesbian.  Because somehow that was the principal's business at all?!

Here is my very unpopular and apparently horrible view of schools.  They should teach kids academics.  If they have extra time and resources after that, they can move on to extras like social clubs and programs.  But if they are cutting the academics, I don't think they should be doing ANY social niceties at all. And that includes offering counseling to traumatized detasslers.  The kids were students, but they weren't JUST students.  Somebody else could have carried that burden.

Now, for the record, I was told that it was all volunteer work by the counselors and that none of this cost anyone anything, so my whole original point was null and void.  I just couldn't believe how many people posted things like "You should just be glad they're getting counseling" as though I suggested they shouldn't get any help at all.  I did tell Tom, for the record, that should I die and the kids need counseling, be a fucking parent and get it for them yourself; don't wait for the school to step in.  Because seriously, if my kid saw a coworker electrocuted in front of her, I think I'd arrange for her to get help if she needed it myself. Because like I said, it's not the school's place to do it for me.  And I think that the implication that if the school didn't offer counseling to those kids then they'd never get it is just an outright insult to the parents.  Because really, you wouldn't go get your kid help unless the principal did it for you?

So now he knows why.

There are days when after dealing with a toddler, an almost-toddler, and a sullen teenager, I need a beer.  I feel that this is okay. I put the baby down, I know I have hours until he'll want milk again, so I have a beer. Tom looks at me sideways but he doesn't say anything. And yet I know he disapproves (not because of the nursing but because he disapproves of drinking in general).
Yesterday I left at 2:00 pm and got home at 9:30 pm.  He got the boys up from their naps, made dinner, fed them dinner, cleaned up after, and then dealt with the pre-bedtime and bedtime routines. When I got home, he had a beer.
Life is funny.

Childhood freedom

The crime rate overall in the US is lower today than it was when I was a kid. [source] In all honestly, it was more dangerous for us to play outside and ride our bikes in the 80s than it is for our kids to do the same now. And yet, I hear from a lot of parents that they just cannot conceive of letting their kids do the same things they did, the same things they remember fondly as integral parts of their childhood. Sure I have friends who are helicopter parents, overprotective and proud of it. But I have friends who are fairly reasonable people, who still worry that letting their children go on unscripted bike rides will somehow give permission to wandering herds of pedophiles (they travel in herds, right?) to snatch their children.

I remember when my daughter was ten and was supposed to meet me at a friend's house. I showed up alone and then told the woman that Ryan would be there shortly; she was riding her bike over from a sleepover at her friend's. This woman, whose own daughter was nine at the time, asked me when I had started letting Ryan ride her bike by herself, like just off down the street alone. I can't remember now what I answered, but I do remember that this lady, an oddly optimistic woman usually, was just shocked because she didn't let her kids ride their bikes by themselves. They went on family bike rides together, but no one could just go to their friend's house or to the park or even just ride around aimlessly. And this woman even said that when she was a kid she rode her bike all over town, from morning until dusk.

It's hard for me to let my kids go. At just about every stage of my kids' development, some part of me rebels. I cried the first time Ryan went to preschool. And even last year when she started junior high. But I had to leave her at preschool, and let her go to junior high. And I made the conscious decision, at several points, to think back to my own childhood in this same small town, and set reasonable boundaries for her. She could ride her bike anywhere south of the tracks and north of the high school. A couple years later she could cross the tracks but not the highway. Now, at almost 13, she can ride her bike (or new electric scooter from Santa) all over town.

In case you're thinking I am just ridiculously permissive, keep in mind that my daughter has her cell phone on her at all times. Twenty years ago I had no cell phone, no way for my mother to find me if I was out of earshot. She told me to be home at 6:00 and I came home at 6:00, but she never knew where I was until then. And that was fine. It was great! I went on long bike rides, wandered through parks, found toads in the back of the cemetery, sat and read at the library, lots of fun stuff. And I want my kids to come up with their own fun memories of bike rides and toad hunting and neighborhood exploring. I want to raise free range kids.