There are three things that don't lie:
- Drunks
- Children
- and yoga pants.
But drunks are delusional and never stop lying to themselves about how much they are hurting themselves and the people around them.
Children learn at a VERY young age how to lie to their parents, learning to lie both by omission and by active prevarication.
...which leaves us with just yoga pants.
For the most part, the talk during my "boys out" weekend carefully stayed away from politics. But it did veer, for a very, very short time, into trans-gender issues and the parents' right to know.
One of our party supports the rights of teachers over the rights of parents. He stated "I don't have a problem" with teachers who actively aid transitioning of kids and hide it from the child's parents.
His rational, which he insisted on telling us after agreeing that this was a third-rail topic that we could not discuss, was that the parents had already failed their child because they did not know what the child was thinking. He believed that the parents no longer had a "say" because of that perceived failure in communicating with their child.
In my limited experience, his line of reasoning is fraught with issues. Primarily, that parents are not capable of reading minds. Kids tell lies and most parents attempt to walk the line where they allow kids some degree of privacy by not snooping through all of their things like the STAZI or combing through their communications looking for evidence.
In other news that might be related
Enrollment at public schools is crashing.
Houston Intermediate Schools lost 27,000 students and is cutting 2300 administrative positions to balance their budget. Source.
That is a lot of featherbedding! 187,000/2300 is 1-in-80 which seems like a lot of administration...and those are just the ones they are cutting-loose. The over-all staffing rate was 1-to-16 which included classroom teachers and custodians.
Is it possible that parents are losing trust in public schools and are making other choices?
Hat-tip to Mike.
A couple of decades ago I spoke to the Superintendent of a very large school district in S. Calif. about staff. He said that so many regulations were coming out of DC and Sacramento that his staff, just to handle the regulations and ensure their implementation, had grown by thousands of percent over just the previous 10 years. NONE of these folks did one thing towards educating anyone...just dictate implementation. I'm sure it's only gotten worse.
ReplyDeleteYour "friend" who thinks teachers should be allowed to talk to and aid the transition of kids without the parents permission or knowledge is almost certainly a pedophile or some other related pervert. Only sick disgusting perverts and pedos think talking to elementary children about sex or gender transition is a good thing. ANYONE who subscribes to this theory is a defective human. And there is no cure for them.
ReplyDeleteHe is a "If it feels good, do it" kind of guy who is floating through life.
DeleteHe also had only one son. It is very easy to get an inflated opinion of absolutes from a sample of one. Maybe his kid sat down after coming home from school and told them EVERYTHING.
It is even easier when you have no children to have fairy-dust and unicorn theories when you have no children of your own.
I had a development psych teacher try to tell me how kids developed in accordance with the parents dictates and were not a product of their genes. Well...my boy played with Barbies too. He lay on on the floor and beat it with another. He had no wrestling men at the time. Per that stupid prof, we must have taught him to do it. By the way, she had no kids and I had three - all in different developmental stages that I could observe and both sexes as well. Ignorant theory vs real life. Real life wins.
DeleteAny time the school personnel advise the student 'Don't Tell Your Parent's About This' shoots up a huge red flag. That is the action of someone who planning on asking for an action a parent would object to.
ReplyDeleteKids don't belong to the government or schools. PARENTS are the persons who are held responsible for their kid's actions, not the government or school. Unless the public system is ready to take responsiblity for that - hands off our kids.
There is a fourth thing that doesn't lie: targets. When I teach Appleseed I use this meme in the section where we teach how to read targets to diagnose one's shooting issues. Drunks, children, yoga pants, and targets.
ReplyDeleteIn the Darwinian sense, I shouldn't care about transgender people. After all, they are voluntarily taking themselves out of the gene pool and are not competing with me or my progeny. As a human being and a Catholic, however, I do care because they are obviously very damaged people. I believe that the damage isn't usually something traumatic but rather that these children have no identity because they have no accomplishments. Put a kid in sports, have them work out every day, get them involved in fixing things or creating things or just doing something. Too many children today do nothing and therefore feel like they are nothing.
ReplyDelete"Too many children today do nothing and therefore feel like they are nothing." - BULLSEYE!
DeleteTwo items, ERJ:
ReplyDelete1) As a general rule (and no matter what the side), I find the idea of agreeing to avoid third rail topics and then someone stepping in with "I know we agreed to this, but I am going to touch on it - and my reasoning and maybe a little discussion" a bit rude, frankly. We agree to conditions of conversation for a reason - to keep relationships in contact with each other and treat each other on an equal footing. To find a reason to "stray" after agreeing is to remove that footing.
2) In both New Home and my hometown, they are closing schools due to declining enrollment. Interestingly in New Home, they are looking to change zoning laws and part of the reason given is that "it will increase enrollment and avoid closing schools that historically have served neighborhoods". People opting out is one reason; another can be the fact that this places are becoming increasingly expensive and thus families cannot afford to live there. Look to the suburbs and ex-urbs; that is where the school growth is happening.
Lucky for me, there was only one person who was addicted to having "the last word".
DeleteSome people have a difficult time grasping that you cannot always talk people into agreeing with your position. They believe that they will prevail if only they can talk at you long enough.
They might even be offended. "Is that what we have come to. We just shut up and move on to other topics that we are mostly in agreement about?"
My opinion is that it is a waste of breath and my remaining seconds on this earth to try to convert the totally unwilling or to spend much psychic energy listening to those whose views are diametrically opposite my core-values.
I agree with this statement. I to gave up many years ago trying to convert persons to my way of thinking about things. I am 64 & have more important things to do with my remaining time.
DeleteWhen the time comes they are either standing besides me or they will be a potential target.
ERJ, I read you daily, well more than once a day actually. I have really missed your serialized fiction. Imagine my surprise when OldNFO had a book review.
ReplyDeletehttps://oldnfo.org/2023/07/24/book-promo-68/
I am on a mobile platform and don't see the sidebars. You might consider this when you have a book out.
Ps, is it as good as your previous stuff?
I am in agreement with Anonymous @ 7:08. I've a tad bit of experience with the 'Don't tell' crowd. In most circumstances it could be called 'grooming' and deserving of a trip head first down a deep well.
ReplyDeleteIn high school 11/12th grade you could take sex ed for girls it was the banana and condom. But now it 1st grade forward. Apparently school books now teach anal sex in 3rd grade. Imagine if you will, son coming home from school and say's dad I'd like to talk with you about always washing your hands after anal sex and make sure you don't penetrate mom's vagina after as that could give her a bad infection. I just wanted you to know cause your so old maybe they didn't teach you that in school.
ReplyDeleteSome folks seem to learn the hard way. The *evil* comes from violating "consent".
ReplyDeleteThe evil pursues the "gray areas". The very idea of "consent" quickly becomes exceedingly complicated as you move down the spectrum from adult, through child, animal, plant, rock...
The ethical try to keep blood off their hands by staying away from "gray areas". "Don't mess with mister inbetween".
Unfortunately, not everyone agrees, and society has traditionally solved these problems with "extreme prejudice".
Nearly everyone believes there must be a better way. None has been found.