Boy, has the world changed since I was a kid! Last night I spent 2 excruciating hours attending something called the 6th Grade Celebration at my son’s Intermediate school (grades 4 -6). Except for the caps and gowns, diplomas, and cigars, this was a graduation ceremony. So please help me understand. Since when did completing 6th grade become such an important milestone? For me, it meant only two things: 1) summer vacation had arrived; and 2) I would never, ever, ever EVER again have to see or smell Riverside School’s evil teacher Killer Kahn or her skunk perfume ever again. And I never did. I heard a rumor that she died some years later, settling a longstanding wager about whether she was human or a mid level demon.
So this is what the world has come to; we throw a party to reward minors for doing what they are expected to do, overlooking the years of hemming and hawing and bitching and moaning about having to do it. And we wonder why so many young people today are so freakin’ entitled!
And then there are the speeches. The Principal, the Chairman of the Board of Education (who sends her kids to private school!!), and the PTO President all feel obliged get up and “say a few words,” which are somehow never few, in spite of the painfully obvious fact that they are all amateur public speakers who would have been better off just letting the kid of the nerdy parents deliver their speeches for them. I only wish a representative from the Guinness Book of World Records was on hand because I’m pretty sure they set a new record for number of clichés littering their butchered attempts at elocution.
Now I’m not a PTO member by choice (all parents are forced to pay “voluntary” dues), but I humbly suggest that members better scrutinize the way the PTO leadership spends its money. Purchasing special T-shirts busy with 150 illegible signatures to give out to the graduates as they pick up their diplo…er, certificate, which the children will wear maybe once but never in public, may not be the most fiscally responsible thing to do with my goddamned dues money. Just sayin’. But in their defense, the shirts did get some use last night. Lacking (thankfully) a cap to toss into the air, the graduates chucked their shirts into the air or at each other at the merciful conclusion of the program. Those shirts left behind were taken home by the school janitors to clothe their children.
And if you think this kind of behavior is just some temporary fad, think again. The two Student Council presidents, dressed like they were attending a Hollywood extravaganza, what with their shiny beads and sequins and excessive makeup and bling, also happened to be the daughters of the PTO officers. Inspired by their mothers, the girls spent student dues money to hire some schmuck to dress up as a giant yellow star and parade around like some sort of mascot from a drug inspired Dali painting. If our children are our future as all of those inspirational speeches suggest, then we all better start dumping as much money as possible into our retirement accounts RIGHT NOW!
In the face of such societal coddling, there remains one consolation in that laws regarding parental rights haven’t changed much. Now that summer is here, I own that kid and have every right to make him work for no pay. My roof, my rules, my servant. Time to stamp out the entitled narcissism nourished in the schools and teach him what a hard day’s labor really feels like. I don’t know about you, but I plan on having a very relaxed summer!
Believe The Captain when he says: Medals are for heroes, not mediocres!
Yours medal-less,
The Captain
So this is what the world has come to; we throw a party to reward minors for doing what they are expected to do, overlooking the years of hemming and hawing and bitching and moaning about having to do it. And we wonder why so many young people today are so freakin’ entitled!
And then there are the speeches. The Principal, the Chairman of the Board of Education (who sends her kids to private school!!), and the PTO President all feel obliged get up and “say a few words,” which are somehow never few, in spite of the painfully obvious fact that they are all amateur public speakers who would have been better off just letting the kid of the nerdy parents deliver their speeches for them. I only wish a representative from the Guinness Book of World Records was on hand because I’m pretty sure they set a new record for number of clichés littering their butchered attempts at elocution.
Now I’m not a PTO member by choice (all parents are forced to pay “voluntary” dues), but I humbly suggest that members better scrutinize the way the PTO leadership spends its money. Purchasing special T-shirts busy with 150 illegible signatures to give out to the graduates as they pick up their diplo…er, certificate, which the children will wear maybe once but never in public, may not be the most fiscally responsible thing to do with my goddamned dues money. Just sayin’. But in their defense, the shirts did get some use last night. Lacking (thankfully) a cap to toss into the air, the graduates chucked their shirts into the air or at each other at the merciful conclusion of the program. Those shirts left behind were taken home by the school janitors to clothe their children.
And if you think this kind of behavior is just some temporary fad, think again. The two Student Council presidents, dressed like they were attending a Hollywood extravaganza, what with their shiny beads and sequins and excessive makeup and bling, also happened to be the daughters of the PTO officers. Inspired by their mothers, the girls spent student dues money to hire some schmuck to dress up as a giant yellow star and parade around like some sort of mascot from a drug inspired Dali painting. If our children are our future as all of those inspirational speeches suggest, then we all better start dumping as much money as possible into our retirement accounts RIGHT NOW!
In the face of such societal coddling, there remains one consolation in that laws regarding parental rights haven’t changed much. Now that summer is here, I own that kid and have every right to make him work for no pay. My roof, my rules, my servant. Time to stamp out the entitled narcissism nourished in the schools and teach him what a hard day’s labor really feels like. I don’t know about you, but I plan on having a very relaxed summer!
Believe The Captain when he says: Medals are for heroes, not mediocres!
Yours medal-less,
The Captain
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