ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, October 20, 1996 TAG: 9610210019
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
COLUMN: DISPATCHES FROM RYE HOLLOW
SOURCE: STEVE KARK
It must be tough being a kid these days. From what I've seen in the paper lately, it appears that our children are having to pay for my generation's inability to deal with its own problems.
Take, for instance, the case of the Ohio teen-ager who was busted last month for bringing Midol to school and sharing it with a classmate. Unable to deal with a growing drug problem in any other way, her school supervisors created a blanket drug policy that presumably groups cocaine and marijuana with aspirin.
It's a good thing that school officials didn't extend their drug search to include teachers' desks. The chances are good that they might've discovered several bottles of aspirin squirreled away beneath the student papers at the bottom of more than a few desks.
This student's situation draws attention to our own hypocrisy. We are, like it or not, a society that uses drugs. Look in the medicine cabinet of most homes, walk through the aisles of most supermarkets, and you will see that drug use is, if anything, increasing.
You'll find a varied assortment of pills and capsules, balms and ointments, restoratives, elixirs, potions, patches, spirits and tonics. We use them for everything from aching muscles to losing weight or restoring lost hair. And unlike alcohol and cigarettes, drugs continue to be advertised on TV. Kids see drug use every day, both in and outside the home. How can we expect them to see us as anything but hypocrites when we tell them that drugs are bad?
There's also the case of the 6-year-old North Carolina boy who was suspended from school for sexually harassing a classmate. Apparently, the budding Casanova smooched a little girl for whom he felt some affection, at her urging no less. Feeling that a line had been crossed, school officials decided that some punishment was warranted. (Though after national media attention, those same school officials relented and apologized to the boy and his parents earlier this month.)
There are some people, I suspect, who would argue that it's never too early to teach kids how to behave toward members of the opposite sex. That may be, but I doubt that this is the best way.
Because we are unable to treat each other as equals, we pass laws that we hope will correct the problem. And then, because we are eager to see that justice is served, we impose our standards on those whose own purity of experience ought to exempt them, at least for a while anyway.
Instead of suspending the boy, the teacher could have, at the very minimum, pulled him aside and informed him of the error of his ways.
But no, his offense was too egregious for that.
And now, to compound matters, as I sit here typing these words, I have before me an article in which I read that school officials in Towson, Md., have removed "Froggy Went A-Courtin" from library shelves in Baltimore County.
The book was banned, say school officials, because Mr. Froggy is depicted as a 1930s-style gangster who smokes, burns money and carries a gun. (I can't say that I've read the book, but I'd be willing to bet that the flagrant frog is not depicted as a role model for young readers.) The library coordinator has said that the decision to pull the book is not censorship but "selection."
Whatever you want to call it, it sounds like censorship to me. Out this way, we have a saying: "You can dress it up and comb its hair, but a skunk's still a skunk."
As I said, it must be tough being a kid these days. You have everybody telling you not to do drugs while they're popping diet pills and taking aspirin; you have people telling you to respect the rights of others when they have to pass laws to get them to do it themselves; and you have others who want to protect you from violence and bad examples even though TV ratings and box office dollars suggest that these are the very things that my generation savors most.
I feel fortunate to have grown up when I did. I vividly recall an occasion when I was in the fourth grade when I slipped a garter snake down Trudy Miller's blouse. In return for this offense, I was made to sit in the corner and was soundly punched in the nose by the offended party herself. It smarts just to remember it.
Were I to commit a similar offense today, I would probably be labeled as an antisocial troublemaker and would be kicked out of school, at the very least.
If we really want to help our kids, we have to go to the root of the problem. For those of you who remember, Pogo had it right when he said, "I have found the enemy, and he is us."
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