Correct me if I am wrong but when I was growing up. School yard offenses were generally solved by two people, let's call them the Offender and the ofendee, in the school yard or appropriate setting surrounded by a whole bunch of kids screaming "Fight! Fight! Fight!" while they duked it out...
Am I wrong or were my childhood years just special?
Why is it that kids today have so much difficulty solving playground problems?
I think it's part society, part, school, part government, and part the parents fault. No really I do and I could probably argue some more factors in there...
Society, well they play a big part. Because of so called wanna be gangstas that bring guns and knives to playground fights instead of fists, yo Momma jokes, and the occasional big brother/sister. Their idols, big budget rappers and movie stars that wear their pants prison bitch style on television and the movies showing kids that it's okay to do that mess.
Schools I blame because they decided that it had to stop. And granted yes to a point it did. The weapons at school does need to stop. The playground butt-kickings do not. When I was kid if there was a fight on the playground, the teachers let you duke it out until you lost a little steam or someone started loosing a little too much blood and then they pulled you apart, gave you a good talking to, maybe called your parents, and put you in a time out (In school suspension or detention whatever) and generally although it was probably continued at the bus stop back home the fact that you either whooped ass or got your ass whooped in front of the whole school was enough and the tiff was settled and it was all good. Now, Kids get in fights and the teachers call the IN SCHOOL POLICE OFFICER to break it up and you get suspended or expelled or in CMS's case suspended AND sent to some boot camp for bullies. (I've not encountered this yet but I imagine it's someone like that guy Dee from the Maury show that gets all up in your face and screams at you until you cry or something like that and off topic again doe anyone else that watched his episodes ever just want to punch him square in the face? I never someone just try to punch him in the face. I wonder what he would have done. Sorry very off topic there) There can be criminal charges pressed and the parent can even make it so that LEGALLY the two children cannot come in contact again. I can't decide if I want to say WTF or just plain UHmmmmm....
I blame to government because instead of monitoring the images available in television, movies, videos, and music, they started passing laws on imitating that. There's this commercial on television now that has a pick-up truck snowboarding down a mountain and doing a barrel flip. IN little white print on the white white snow is says trucks can't do this, do not attempt. You can't really see it if you are drunk young adult or a kid. Parents with good eyes that see more than the advertisers want you to see, can see the warning but kids and adventurous slightly stupid young adults can't. My own son can't. He asked me if we could get a pick-up and go do that one day. Even tried to tell me that if I wouldn't, his dad would. Yeah he went there. My question is this. Why, Mr. Government, instead of preventing advertisers from showing this to our kids (as well as the music videos where Young Jeezy (Which you realize he's actually saying he's the young new Jesus right) and MC McStupidass (yeah, I made that one up) are walking around again with the prison bitch look with guns talking about popping a cap in someone's ass because they A. Stole their girl, B. Rode up on their property C. Took money from them or D. Some version of all three or they were just having a bad day and the person just looked at them wrong, why are you passing laws that punish the kids and young adults that imitate them. They say imitation is a form of flattery. That's why they keep making these videos and songs and movies. Because there's some jackass that's going to imitate them and even if that person gets locked up in an itty bitty jail cell with some Bubba tapping that ass all night long, the government is just going to punish the dulpicators not the originals.
And I blame the parents. We only know to tell our kids what we learned. My son get hit by a kid at the bus stop four mornings in a row. When my mom was his age, my grandfather would told her (If she was a him) that he'd go talk to the kids parents and the kid would get a whooping and then wail on my moms again. When I was my son's age my mom remembered the extra ass kicking she got because they parent's got involved and she told me to go out there and solve my own problems. Yeah sure I did and I was one of the biggest bullies in my area but I didn't get any extra ass kickings because I went and tattled. So now my son is that age and my advice to him is to go out and solve his own problems. Oh yeah and the kid that thought it was okay to slap my son every morning, ended up with a face full of rock and a still broken tooth that is now growing in very awkwardly causing the kid to have severely bucked teeth but you know what? That kid is my son's best friend now. I'm serious. Of course the kid is still banned from my house and I call him Bucky Canopenerface but so what...
Where was I? Oh yeah. Not all parents are like me. They take that same situation and go down to the bus stop and threaten the kid which in turn causes the parent of the slapper to come down or over to the parent of the slapee and start a ruckus. Or the parent of the slapee goes to the police station and files harassment and abuse charges and the police are involved and well... it just get uglier from there...
So it's a vicious vicious ring and I don't see it getting better at any point in the future, but I gotta say.
I for one, really miss the ring of kids screaming "Fight! Fight! Fight!" while two kids duked it out in the middle. Bring back god old fashioned playground justice. NO weapons, not parents, just two kids duking it out in the middle of a circle.
That being said if we solved world conflicts like that can you imagine Bush and Osama in the ring? Obama and Osama in the ring? Congress sessions would be awesome!
Le sigh...
