I shut down my old site, thinking that I would rather post anonymously. However, I haven't posted at all. I'm really not as concerned about privacy as much as I thought I was. I am who I am. If someone doesn't like it, that's pretty much tough. Hopefully I'll be able to post more now that school is done, Katie is here, and I'm trying to fill up free time.
To that effect, I've brought all my old site content over here. I like my new website name better, and I'm using WordPress, which seems to function a bit nicer than Community Server did. I'll see if I can finish up a couple of my old series, and continue writing.
Thanks for sticking with me! And come on over to Mezzamorphis!
I read two stories today that, as a parent, really made me crazy.
First, from Ottawa, Canada. A judge overturned the grounding (yes, read the article) of a 12-year-old girl. The girl was grounded by her father because she was told to stay off the Internet and she refused. Therefore, she was not allowed to go on a school trip and was grounded as punishment. Now, I'm no expert on Canadian law, but this seems to be a gross imposition on the rights of the parent. If I choose to not allow my child to play video games (and it's happened), they don't get to play video games. When they are on their own they can make up their own rules, but until then, I'll do it for them. If I were a parent in Canada, I'd be concerned that this might become a ruling that other courts may use against them.
Secondly, we have this story from Gloucester, Massachusetts. The high school in Gloucester has experienced a baby boom, having 17 girls become pregnant. Out of a 1,200 student population, they typically average four. While there are larger issues with the pregnancies that I'll let you get from the article, I wanted to focus on one particular aspect of it.
But by May, after nurse practitioner Kim Daly had administered some 150 pregnancy tests at Gloucester High's student clinic, she and the clinic's medical director, Dr. Brian Orr, a local pediatrician, began to advocate prescribing contraceptives regardless of parental consent, a practice at about 15 public high schools in Massachusetts.
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The pair resigned in protest on May 30.
I'm sure that the district has some type of privacy policy for the children, so that they can expect to come in and take a pregnancy test without their parents finding out about it. However, if you start noticing some frequent fliers in there, don't you think it's time to let the parents know that their children are obviously engaging in some risky behavior? It's not time to start handing out the pill to them without parental consent, it's time to bring them in, tell their parents, and let the parents decide what they want the child to do. My children will have a reasonable expectation of privacy when they are older, but they will know that whatever they do is subject to my supervision at any time.
I'm sure that the underlying reason for most of these girls to become pregnant is because they don't get enough love at home. That falls directly on the parents, and they will have to one day answer for that. The girls need to know that there are consequences to getting pregnant. As the older girl in the article says, "...it's hard to feel loved when an infant is screaming to be fed at 3 a.m." Believe me, we know around here.