I really can't help it. I don't just automatically love everyone's kids. I know that this is not a mommy confession that anyone is supposed to make, but there it is. Out there like Britney's ass. If I am talking to your mother in car line and you come running up to me dragging your school sweater, whining about how heavy your backpack is, or picking your nose or other part of your person I might not think you're charming.
That said, I don't want anything bad to happen to your child. I also don't to hear every grievance against every teacher that's ever not recognized your child as the most brilliant human being to ever hit the planet via water birth, natural childbirth, salad spoon squeeze, or the part-saving C-section.
The incident that most annoyed me recently was the case of 4-year-old Taylor Pugh, who was suspended from the Mesquite Independent School District because his long hair violated the district's dress code policies. The mother, being someone who really must have required her fifteen minutes of fame, opted to make a big deal about the hair, citing a number of random and equally ridiculous arguments ranging from Taylor has First Amendment rights of free expression to as a Native American, he has a cultural need to wear his hair long. Oddly, the cultural need did not extend to the kid's older brothers; however, not being Native American myself, perhaps there is some random tribal rule stating that only the third child in the lineup shall be required to wear his hair like Danny Bonaduce circa 1971. Or whenever Danny lived. Also, the mother in her large T-shirt (Tim Gunn so appropriately has discussed the slobbification of America) said, "What am I supposed to do? Hold him down for a haircut? He likes his hair this way!"
The school district did not kick the kid out of school, but they did pull him from the classroom. The kid was, according to "news" outlets, isolated in - variously - the library, the principal's office, and so on, at times with a school aide and other times with a personal tutor. Einstein may have come back from the grave to teach him physics. Somewhere in the middle of all that second-hand smoke reporting lies the truth, so you choose your own middle ground.
When asked by plaintive reporters who wondered why the "adorable" Tater Tot (as he prefers to be called) was being scarred for life by being isolated from his peers, the district's spokesperson gave them the line that Tater's hair was a distraction. This, so far as I am concerned, was a massive public relations blunder.
The issue with Taylor Pugh's hair was not that it was a distraction. To give this statement was to open the issue to argument: girls have long hair, 4-year-olds aren't distracted by long hair, why can't boys have long hair, maybe they do have a Native American requirement (though if they had, believe me that the district would never have argued the point) and why does the district get to decide how long anyone's hair is, anyway?
What the district should have said was that the reason Taylor Pugh's hair cannot be this long is because that hair length violates the dress code that was put in place by this district by the school board members elected by this district and with assistance from a parent committee comprised of parents from the district and approved by Taylor Pugh's parents when they signed the form saying that they had read and understood the student handbook.
Dress codes require standards. If skirt length, facial piercings, or hair length doesn't conform to those standards, the rules have been broken. If you give an inch here or there, who's to say that another inch would matter at all? Pretty soon, there are no standards.
Works for hair length, works for society.
What I would say to the parents of Taylor Pugh: no one cares whether you think your child is adorable. So far as I can see, he isn't any more or less adorable than any other kid. You cost the taxpayers of the Mesquite ISD thousands of dollars in special attention for your child as well as public relations man-hours. You also cost the districts that share funding with your district -- because quite frankly, I am happy to pay for the education of children in less fortunate districts, but I don't want to pay to finance the whims of parents whose only indulgences to their child will be those financed by the state or other people.
I'd also like to point out that pre-K4 education is not required by the State of Texas; it serves as a headstart and daycare for children who fall into cracks, much like the free lunch and breakfast programs. If you didn't like the terms of the district-sponsored program, you should have done what most people would do: get a second job to finance Taylor's education at a school that would let him wear his hair any old way he wanted.
Furthermore, every child in the State of Texas does have a right to an education, but not a right to dictate (through his parents) his own personal terms for his education.
And the answer is, yes, you should have held him down to get a haircut. You are the parent, and if you can't convince your 4-year-old child to sit still for a haircut, you may as well turn custody of Tater Tot over to the state now, because it appears that you have no ability to control your child and the situation will only become worse as he gets older and more headstrong and develops an increasingly overweening sense of entitlement.
The American Dream is not about getting your way. It's about fitting into a productive society as a productive citizen and putting a little money away every year so that at the end of your life, you can live in relative comfort and not be a burden to society.
Shame on you, news people. This wasn't a story. It was a spectacle.
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
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