…or is everybody else? Sometimes I really don’t know. Is it a “silent majority” thing and I am the only loud mouth, or am I really in the minority? Are my opinions really that out in left field?
Feels like a rant is coming on and you, my dear friends, will have to excuse me while I try to stay on track. This frustration is not one thing, but many things…this uniform thing is just the straw that broke the camel’s back.
The school system here is attempting to implement a uniform policy. We had this when we lived in Chicago and it was fantastic. Mark and I both felt that if we had uniforms in school, we would have hated it, and our lives would have been much easier. However, some parents don’t feel this way and that’s okay. But, OMG (to use the cool, hip, text abbreviation) can we get over it already! Reading the newspaper, you would think Stalin was running the board and Hitler was poised to take over. I don’t get it. My kids have enough to deal with in their young lives with society being the way it is. Any attempt to remove some of those distractions while they are attempting to get an education is fine by me.
They say that the problem would be solved if the administration would just enforce the current dress code. Are you kidding? Have any of you been shopping for school age girls lately? Now, I can’t speak to the boys, because I don’t have any, but girls I got and it is near impossible. What does my 5 year old or my 10 year old need with halter tops, short shorts, and platform shoes to round out the outfit? Sure, you can get them long pants and then contend with the provocative remarks the manufactures insist on pasting across the butt. That’s much better. You are basically limited to jeans, capris, and t-shirts (funny, sounds like a uniform policy). This is fine with me until I am getting the kids ready for school or shopping in the mall and I have to hear for the eleventy billionth time about what so and so’s mom will let them wear, buy, scout around town in. No thank you. Get up, get breakfast, brush your teeth, and grab one of the approved uniforms that will be very much the same as anything else anybody else has on. Bypass the drama and get on to the job at hand – getting your education.
Speaking of the job at hand, a lot of jobs require a uniform, or, at the very least, a required manner of dress. Are they oppressive and limiting free expression of their employees? Are we going to bash the boards of these companies for their abusive practices? No. We are probably working for them, collecting a paycheck, and happy for it.
I could go on. There are lots of things in the media that are absolutely driving me crazy – taxes, immigration, Iraq, and the list goes on. But, I won’t. I will say this and be done. Don’t be a shallow thinker. Take opinions out to their logical conclusion. Pay attention to the society around you and compare it to what the media says society is. If you hear it on the news, don’t listen to what they say, figure out what they mean – it is all too often two different things.
The school year is almost over. We are participating in all the regular end of the year activities. Today was the Awards Program for Madison. I couldn’t have been more proud.