Legislating Morality

My indignant side came out the other day, Thursday to be exact. It wasn't pretty. As I've grown older I've learned to let things slide that I never would have before. Thursday was not one of those days.

The following incident struck me the wrong way (I was in a pissy mood anyway) and because one of my kids was involved, morality was involved and teaching my kid something that I feel should be left to the parents was involved, I went into overdrive.

I guess I should preface this with  I CAN, and do, see both sides of the situation, I really can. The thing is, the school does NOT know more about my child than I do, I've been a stay at home mom for 24 years, I know my kids. I get really fired up when I feel the school is trying to take on my role as a parent.

That's one reason most of my kids were homeschooled for the majority of their education. When they did go back to school they went back as socially rounded, confident, honor students. They did amazingly well except for my mischief maker.....he knows who he is.....but he did go back with an outstanding grasp on his education, his social skills and his balanced outlook on the world. He just happened to be my kid that loved fun, pranks and making kids laugh, which meant he spent a fair amount of time the hallways. But as far as academics, he had them more than down.

My son that was "forced" into this objectionable, to me, program is an eighth grader. I approved most of the curriculum for his health class. Evidently I dropped the ball and didn't read the fine print before I crossed out what would and would not be acceptable for them to teach him in health, or in any other class. 

The cause of my, now kind of kind of  embarrassing unleashing, is a program called RealityWorks. That's where school kids are given a choice, complete a HUGE packet of work or take a RealityWorks, real life, simulated newborn home for the weekend. What kid is going to choose to do a HUGE packet of what they see as voluminous work over a baby doll?

Not so bad you say? I agree on most fronts, especially after seeing the doe eyed girls in the class claim "their" baby, naming them, and cuddling them like the dolls they are. I remember those days, the days thinking a baby would be the answer to everything. I also didn't have parents that dared mention such things. Nor did they explain how a baby would complicate my life. So maybe Realityworks would have been good for me, a child that had very little parenting and very little parental direction.

BUT ( see how big a "but" that was), as a VERY involved parent with my kids' morality and sex ed, it pissed me off that the VICE PRINCIPAL admitted to me that it was indeed a morality program. She got quite the earful from me. It's for me to indoctrinate my kids, haha, not them!

No one legislates morality to my children. They learn that from what goes on within the walls of our home and within the confines of our conversations. They learn from our mistakes and our triumphs. I don't appreciate the assumptions that are being made by the school.

I can see the doll as a tool used to educate about child abuse, I can see it used as a tool for teaching children that have no concept of the reality of a how a newborn changes lives permanently, kids that have uninvolved parents or at risk youth. 

In this program kids are fitted with an electronic bracelet, they are given a bottle, two diapers with sensors and the creepy baby that always has it's eyes open AND following you. 

What I have a problem with is the school system legislating morality to kids. That job belongs to the child's FAMILY.

Yes, I've had kids that have made mistakes, yes I've made mistakes. But when someone else steps in to take my place as a parent I get a little pissed off.

This has nothing to do with the lessons the simulated baby teaches the children, but it should be my choice, not the school's.

Also that damned baby cried ALL WEEKEND and, as we all know, I am SO over babies! 

You know what my kid learned about the baby? He learned  that new parents NEVER get a hot meal. Another thing he learned was how to prop the bottle up so he didn't have to feed the screaming plastic Nero, well, I guess we've all done that at one time or another.

Even though I can see the benefit, don't shove your morality, cloaked in "good intentions," on my kid....let me do that. 

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