Parents Caught Raising Well-Rounded Daughter

UPDATE: (Long as JDM has caught me goofing off again, I might as well do it right): Brad Warthen is on topic.  Check out the video he links, hilarious.  So true.

(Said by a fellow LLL grad who has not only CD’d, but hung them out to dry on the line. Then again, my 2nd-born’s first food was Tiramisu.  My credentials are doubtful.)

********

The Livesay’s on their daughter with the “weirdest life ever”.

I link because the whole parenting-police theme is central to that homeschooling book I’m reportedly writing.  (Yes I am in fact writing it.  Slowly.)  We live in a bizarre society where one of the national pastimes is getting all huffy because someone else’s life isn’t one long giant defense of your own personal decisions.

The really funniest one is when some lady (yes, usually a lady), says something along the lines of, “Sure, nobody’s perfect, but how can that family possibly homeschool, when their children’s socks don’t even match!”  [This is ironic, because of course if sock-matching were the measure of educational success, it would be so much easier to assess the schools.]

I kid not.  People — registered voters with college degrees, even — truly do say this stuff.   Lately I mostly hear it about those horrible horrible parents like the Livesays, who send their children to school, but the method can be used  against any parenting decision anytime anywhere, so long as you pick your audience properly.  The formula is this:

a)  Insist that of course you aren’t setting up impossible standards

b)  Choose someone or something you don’t like

c)  Randomly choose some criteria that you have decided should be the central measure of human worth.

d) Make sure it is something that you excel at, and your target does not.  Also, make sure the person to whom your are speaking manages well enough at the proposed criteria.

e)  Use a tone that suggests the parents are feeding the children excrement or mating them with livestock,  as you point out your target doesn’t meet your made-up requirement.

f)  Chortle triumphantly at your brilliant proof that your target should give it up and just come to you for lessons in proper living.

You think I exaggerate.  No I do not. People do this.  And it makes life a nightmare for parents who are genuinely trying to figure out the best way to rear their children under difficult circumstances.  So lay off the parents.  That’s my Friday sermon:  Lay off.

****

BTW if you aren’t feeling chastised (or smug) enough, Ruth at Wheelie catholic has more cautionary tales of employee horror.  Because the utter cluelessness of mankind knows no bounds. Go read. Be warned.  Amend your ways.  Find yourself rocketing to Employee of the Year.  It’s all good.