The New Me, Who Is the Old Me, and What I Have to Say

The vast majority of my readers are lovely people, and I appreciate you so much for reading. The problem I'm experiencing now is my gradual awakening to the fact that I have watered down my own soul to suit other people, and I resolve now to be done with this. If you didn't like me before because I openly express my opinion and value my own experience over some so-called "empirical evidence" to the contrary, beware. Just don't read this blog anymore, and go ahead and unfriend me on Facebook. I may be a lady, but I'm not going to coddle the whiners, haters, meanies, gossips, and censors anymore. I'm sick of being diplomatic and editing my words so that someone isn't offended. No more, "Please understand me! That isn't what I meant. Let me change my words so you won't be angry." Either you understand or you don't. I DON'T CARE. You can thank Matt Walsh's blog for this. He isn't unkind. He simply calls a spade a spade. So here is what is bugging me right now.

I am a religious education teacher at a Catholic church. My eight year old cousin was expressing to me that the security cameras all over her school, as well as the armed janitors, give her the creeps. She is deeply disturbed by this prison-like atmosphere. When I was discussing this with a group of the CCD children, another adult was quick to stress that if you aren't doing anything wrong, why should it bother you? She also suggested that parents make children have these ideas. As an administrator, she condones this madness. So many things are wrong with this picture! First of all, the insinuation that kids can't think for themselves, and that their honest feelings aren't valid. Second, that it's those darned parents causing all the trouble. And the further implication that parents shouldn't have such undue influence on their own children.

As a parent, and as a former classroom teacher, and as a person who is trying to remove my head from decades of brainwashing sand, and as I told this woman, the security cameras are a violation of privacy, and I wouldn't like it, regardless of whether or not I was being "good" or "bad".  Armed security guards don't stop school shootings, and neither do cameras. Ask the students at Columbine. She suggested that at least the cameras would catch the identity of the shooter. Um, isn't the shooter usually dead at the end and therefore easily identifiable? He usually commits suicide. So tell me again the reason for the cameras? So that the school knows which kids are picking their noses and how many squares of toilet tissue they use? Granted, security cameras aren't usually placed in restrooms, but the issue of privacy is still at stake, especially considering the overall threat to freedom in America that seems to grow more menacing every day.

As a parent, I don't want the government videotaping or otherwise tracking my kid. I don't want the government usurping my God-given right as the primary educator of my child. I don't want the daughter of my womb to value the opinion of her peers and strangers at school over that of her parents. If my kid was freaked out by cameras and a man with a mop in one hand and a gun in his pocket, I would care. I would care even if it wasn't my own kid. I do care, and I do pay taxes for this government imprisonment of our children's souls. And as a concerned, tax paying citizen, I object!  Administrators do not know better than parents. Being an administrator doesn't make you smarter or more qualified in regard to the welfare and education of children than anyone else. I will not have my opinion invalidated by "professional" educators.

At least I told my fellow Catholic woman, politely but firmly, what I thought. I stood up for those who cannot stand up for themselves. At least maybe I bothered her enough that she went home and thought about what I said. Maybe I planted a little seed, and she adjusted her attitude more toward one of champion of children, and supporter of the work of loving parents. Maybe she saw a bit of light shining through the sand.