Zero Tolerance
What a concept.
I was thinking about what we have to look forward to with our children, what kind of world.
Right now, Henry is a fool for running around and shooting everyone. He must’ve got it from the Speed Racer video we got from his cousin. He’s always been big on industrial noises, so this is one step better. So will he end up getting expelled from kindergarten for death threats?
My friends and I did cops’n’robbers until we were WAY too old—we didn’t do team sports, we did imaginary adventure. We drew all sorts of sketches of bombs. We studied explosives in the library in complete detail. I’m sure we made up lists of all the kids and teachers who we hated. I’m sure we drew pictures of them in all sorts of morbid poses. Bulging eyes. Bloody holes. Tied up. –Along with war scenes, fighter planes, explosions, hot rods, forked tongues. We blackened the eyes of people in our textbooks. If Henry does this, will teachers catch him and have to report him? “I’m sorry but it’s out of our hands.” If I ever hear that I’ll be glad to drop out. Who would be part of such a world?
We used to empty shotgun shells and taped bb’s to the primers then threw them up in the air. I bet I drew up a couple dozen diagrams of making bombs and gunpowder. I recall checking out books from the jr-hi library that explained nitroglycerin. We thought it was all the greatest, reading up on all that stuff. Propellants, rockets, action, destruction, noise!
We had great revenge on other gangs of kids. Throwing snowballs…and rocks…at each other. It would escalate to bbguns and bow and arrows from time to time. Of course, our gangs changed membership on a weekly basis, to keep things interesting. Would we all be in jail now? Would it be out of everyone’s hands, “I’m sorry, but…”?
Or what about fighting. I was never really in a fight. I knew a little geek, though, who turned into a devil when pushed too far or if someone was picking on his friend, even though everyone else was bigger. I also had another fighter-for-justice friend, who if he ever saw someone doing wrong would hop right in and clean house, no matter what the odds. He had a few broken wrists and noses there for awhile. Those kids scared people, but they were great. Does everyone get expelled for that these days? I’ve heard about it in the city next door, but our suburbs and local rural towns (fast becoming suburbs) are just as modern.
Am I going to have to train Henry to speak a special language? He’s already polite, but I don’t think that’s what they’re after. What are we in for? Maybe he’ll end up putting our garage sale Brittanica to good use after all ($5, 1985, complete). I think he could get his GED after reading it.
Would I be able to go along with any kind of nutsy rule, could I ever tell him to say that ‘essential yes’ that Jack Saunders refers to? I’d be happy to make him follow all kinds of rules he doesn’t understand but which I know are good for him, but I don’t think I could tell him to really do something crazy like not draw as he pleases.
I see all the thousands of apratments and condos and minimalls that are being built up directly across from the new high school. The widened, fast, jampacked roads. What kind of world will that be?
I grew up with my elementary school just down a local dirt road. During recess, we’d leave the school property and play in the next door swamp or corn field. We could skip school in middle school and hike home along the river just out back. We actually had lots of professional families at our schools, being a new suburb. But what will the kids be like as part of the new service economy? What kind of kids come from thousands of condos? Friends for life for my kids?
Of course, the suburban thing had its own weak spots. It created a prized position for sameness and infinitesimal peer pressure. Most of the kids were carbon copies. If you wore the wrong shoelaces, you’d be teased. Izod was king, and early Adidas tennies. We had none, so we were out. But who cared. It was a bit hellish, but we did have our own groups of buddies.
When I was growing up, one family got divorced. And none moved. We added a couple kids a year. I still know several of my old elementary school classmates. We went on overnights with several teachers. We went on informal ad hoc special trips when the teachers thought we needed a lift, or if we won a special merit prize for who knows what.
That’s what I want for my kids. It’s not all sweetness and light, but I’m not sure how the new Zero Tolerance is going to fit in.
