Are you familiar with the TV commercials featuring professional adults gleefully eating gummy bears with children’s voices dubbed in for them? Cutest ads ever! However, when adults act like children in reality, and do not have dubbed-in children’s voices, it is not even a little bit cute.
Adults acting like children is what I witnessed at the last two Warsaw School Board meetings addressing mask requirements. Instead of extolling the fun and tastiness of gummy candies, these adults displayed tantrums, petulance and whining while spewing a plethora of irrational and totally misconstrued information. I found myself waiting for their insistence of the existence of the boogeyman, the tooth fairy, the Easter bunny and, dare I say it, Santa Claus.
The “facts” as these parents listed them could only have come from the Facebook medical school, questionable practicing medical people commonly known as snake oil salesmen or even politician wannabes, or fear mongering TV personalities seeking ever higher ratings. Frequent references cited were “Somebody said” and “They’re saying …” (I would really like to know who this somebody and they are.) The only action missing from these rantings was the stomping of feet as they demanded their “rights” – even if those rights might infringe upon the health and safety of others.
Some parents stated that they wanted the schools to do one job and one job only … educate. Since school children spend most of their day entrusted to the care of educators, shouldn’t every parent expect those educators to also keep their children safe? Safe from disease, safe from lunatics who might harm them, safe from destructive weather? Instead of showing gratitude, these short-sighted parents threatened legal action, student walk-outs and mass protest. Obviously, all the education some kids will receive will only be in school.
It is long past time that everyone recognize the need for cooperation in order to get back to normal life. If all it takes is getting a vaccine and wearing a small piece of cloth temporarily, then just do it. No cockamamie excuses! Do some real research! Listen to the people in the real world – not the people on the playground in the fantasy world.
Let’s pass around those gummy bears!
(Yeah, it’s me ... that “emotional old person ranting about generational superiority!”)
