**My wife, Mae, had this post saved as a draft over at our blog for over a year. I was cleaning up some things, discovered this, and decided to post it. Only a few things have been updated from the original text.**
It always takes someone, an incident, or, in this case, an incident to get me off my lazy backside to type a few words as a form of release, so here goes.
After this long I have forgotten how to type, however, I do have the advantage of Joe smirking over my shoulder in disbelief of bad typing and grammar. Just distract him with bouncing boobs would be the solution, but I really need the aggravation to keep my rant alive. So rant I shall.
All those who have children will understand they tend to stretch one’s limits of tolerance at least once a week during the tiresome teenage years. The years where they proudly beat their chests that they are old enough to know all and parents are just too old to remember or appreciate anything. In short, parents are just boring, obsolete, old know-nothings.
We are the parents of not one but two darling teenagers: The youngest, a boy of 15 (now 16), who, if I use an animal analogy, would best be described as a big, good looking, muscular, goofy puppy; the older, a very attractive young woman, a lover of education, the proud owner of the sense of entitlement affliction, with the attitude of no-one is as important as herself – a perfect budding liberal.
Over the past two odd weeks a series of events occurred, you know the kind, those that disturb one’s inner peace.
The disturbance? Our son’s school. The history revealed:
He was walking along a pathway eating an apple during lunch hour break when he was shoved in the chest by a student accusing him of throwing a sandwich. Our son who is approximately 190 lbs. of muscle and 5′ 11″ (now at 16 he is 6′1″ and floats between 210-220 lbs.), known as a jester, told this student he didn’t know what he was on about and took it to be a joke, and continued walking away. The student chased and shoved him in the chest again. So my son, without using the hand holding his apple, tossed the offender on his backside and once again tried to walk away when a second student of the same height attacked him from the side, grabbing him by the throat, and threatened our boy not to make him use his martial arts training against him. Needless to say my son reacted by dropping both his apple and the attacker. Our boy then punched him two more times in the face when he hit the ground. To put it in his own words: “He’s lucky. I tried kneeing him in the head first – but I missed – so I punched him to make sure the idiot knew never to try that with me again cause he sure isn’t any good at martial arts.”
To use a Chris Rock statement: “I’m not saying he should have done it..butttt I can understand.” He used the “pissed off defense.”
Our boy comes home, sits down with Joe and me, informs us of the scuffle, adding that the deputy principal had told him he could be arrested. That last statement there pissed me off severely, so we made the decision to go to the high school principal the next morning (a Friday) to discuss the incidents, as no one had contacted us about anything. We immediately got a meeting with both the principal and deputy principal in attendance, and they agreed the incident happened as our son had described it and as witnesses had reported. Their main concern, however, was not how it began but the “excessive force” our son had used. They needed to assess whether this “excessive force” was grounds for expulsion from the school. The fact that our son had been assaulted not once but twice – and by two students – that they were the instigators, did not shift their opinion. Shit a brick, their response was that our son should have had more “self control” over his “aggressive reaction”, been a better person, just ignored it, and that by not doing so was “how people ended up in prison.”
To shorten this rant, our son was suspended from school for 9 days as the principal had placed the decision in the hands of the board of trustees. Nine days of pure torment awaiting the next board session. 9 days of knowing that the two students that had assaulted him had not received any punishment. 9 days of knowing they were happily attending school having review classes for the December final year exams. 9 days of Joe and I getting rapid fire questions from our son about fairness and justice.
The board meeting day having arrived, the meeting was running smoothly, and our son agreed that he should not have tried to knee a person in the head. One board member asked if they could arrange a more suitable course to enable him to “embrace his cultural heritage”. I saw red and inquired as to which part of his heritage they intend to develop, considering the majority of my heritage derives from Scotland and Ireland with a touch of Maori from one grandmother, and that Joe is American. Quickly back tracking, the question turned to what schools had our son previously attended, the inference leaning toward maybe he is not use to being around rich super brats. I queried the relevance of such a question, adding the final blow that, if they were so interested, to look into his junior years where he attended one of the most expensive private schools in New Zealand. Our son was quickly asked by another board member if he had any questions. Our son asked, “Why am I being punished for being attacked by two people? You know, the one that grabbed me by the throat has already hit another student over the head with a bat and got no punishment at all.”
Things went pear shaped from there, and the board member yelled, telling our son that he was the one who was too aggressive. Joe had been so good until then, but he just let rip, offering to grab the board member by the throat so he could show Joe this control that is needed. Joe, then showing supreme self-control, told them to shove their meeting up their arses, stormed out, slamming the door behind him. The look of pure horror was frozen on the board members’ faces, and my son and I looked at each other, bursting into laughter. Why did we laugh? Why not? They had deserved to hear what was voiced and what had been offered. The reaction of the board was they were convinced by Joe and his less than subtle verbal opinions of the whole event, that we must be offenders of domestic abuse. I simply stated, “No, we are not physically abusive in our family, however, as you heard, we are very passionate about rights and wrongs when pushed beyond tolerable levels.” Our son added, “Yeah, you don’t want to see mum lose it.” Smiling I asked, “What is your decision?” Answer: “He can return to school if he attends anger management classes next year.”
As is the case in many Western nations, New Zealand has a BIG problem with youth offenders of various criminal acts ranging from theft to murder and everything in between. Is it any wonder, then, that one reason for the occurrence of this trend is the mixed messages being sent by those in authority? The message being sent in this situation is that the person in the wrong is the one who inflicts the most physical harm regardless of whether or not it is a matter of self-defence. In other words, it is OK to attack another person physically – as long as you are the one who receives the most physical harm, you will get away with it. With little or no consideration given to who was initially in the wrong you will be considered the “victim”.
“A Clockwork Orange” society developing, anybody?
