Behave Yourself

My husband and my two children were driving through our town the other day, and came across a peculiar sight.  A car (sedan) with the stickers touting the local high school, a personalized license plate and five teenage girls was driving down a main road.  As they drove down the street, one of them popped up through the sunroof (while the car was moving), at least two were leaning out of the windows, and all of them, including the driver were raising their middle fingers, screaming “Fuck You!” to the people they passed, many of those people being children walking home from school.

Now, my husband and I are both teachers, and believe me when I say that we spend more than a fair share of our day listening to language of teenagers.  I believe that many people would be shocked and appalled by the language and actions that teenagers display on a high-school campus.  For those of you who are now saying, “I can only imagine!”, there must be a fair number of you who are saying, “My child would never talk/do/act/strut/throw themselves at the opposite sex like that!”  I know this because over the course of my career, I have received many a letter from a parent appalled that I would allow students onstage to use the word “asshole” (in the award winning play Proof, by the way, after the duo had placed with that scene at a state festival) or even say the word “gay” or refer to a gay character.  But, I digress.

So, my husband, still with his teacher hat on, and my two children in the car who are watching this display of teenage-girl peacock-like behavior, takes a picture of the little darlings on his phone, and posts it on Facebook, to see if anyone knew who it was.

Friends on Facebook suggested posting it on a page dedicated to the goings-on in our town, so the husband did.  It was approved and posted, and a shitstorm erupted.  Our friends, and many of the people who responded to the post had the same mind-set as we did, “That kid needs to be dealt with.  There are consequences for your actions, I hope they find her.” However, like the letter writers saying that I’m destroying today’s youth by exposing them to curse words, there were people who were incensed that Thomas had put that up.

I guess the picture, and the car (easily identifiable by the vanity plates) was seen by the parents.  Within a few hours, my husband actually had a friend of ours call him and ask him to take the post down.  They knew this kid, this family, and said “it’s a personal matter.” Oh yeah, and then the step-mom or dad’s girlfriend or whoever she was, messaged my husband asking him to take the post down.

It’s a good thing that this happened to my husband and not to me, because when I heard that, I erupted.

When I was a kid, and I got in trouble at school, I was terrified.  I was terrified because I knew that it was going to be 100000000000 worse when I got home.  Today, when I talk about a kid’s behavior or other infraction, it often becomes MY (the teacher’s) fault.  My son would never have cheated, what proof do you have?  My daughter would never talk to anyone that way….blah, blah, blah.

There are no consequences.

Now granted, sources say that this girl is in big trouble and got her car taken away from her, but we don’t know these people.

I DO know that if I had done that, my ass would be walking everywhere, which would be ok, because I’d be bruised and battered and sitting down would probably be uncomfortable anyway.

I was just surprised at how many people were upset about this girl and her friends being called out on her undeniably crappy behavior and choices while on a public street, during the day, in front of children.  I’m sorry if you are having a bad day, but learn your audience.  You choose to act like an ass in public, then don't get mad at the people who call you out on it.

I am also pretty happy about the fact that we seem to know lots of people who share similar ideologies with us, and that maybe our children won’t behave like this.  But…if they do, I would hope that someone would tell me so that I can make sure that they would be lucky to ever see the light of day again.