Graffiti is plain ugly, everybody knows that ... in fact, this week it's been talk of the town ... or at least the bloggers that inhabit the Napa Valley Register's Web site.
After reading the article "Two Arrested For Graffiti In Napa" and “Graffiti Suspect Arrested Again," I began to think about why the kids and adults doing graffiti would think it is OK to go around destroying someone else's property by spray-painting it to mark their territory like they are dogs marking trees?
Were they not told the only place you paint things is on paper, as my sister and I were taught? How come there was hardly any graffiti when my parents were kids? How come there weren't even violent gangs when my parents were kids and young adults?
Maybe it has something to do with the fact that when my parents were kids their parents were not only allowed to spank their children when they misbehaved, but were expected to make sure their behavior was appropriate everywhere they were? Nowadays, if a kid misbehaves in public and his parents spanked him, the parents would be given the “stink-eye” by the people around them and would most likely be reported to some authority for child abuse, all because they were trying to teach their kid a lesson.
Why is disciplining your child practically considered a felony? I think it has something to do with the fact so many people are worried about how if you spank your kid you will hurt their “self-esteem” and they will become “socially inept.”
I have news for them. I was spanked by my parents when I misbehaved, and so far I'm even better off than the kids whose parents gave them “time-outs.” Kids I know who were spanked when they misbehaved — me included — are all really sociable, don't have an endless list of bad habits, and definitely do not burst into tears when we are am told no.
A perfect example of what society is turning into is in our schools. Teachers can no longer punish kids when they are disruptive. My mom remembers a girl in her class when she was in second grade who just would not stop talking, no matter how many times the teacher asked her. Before you could blink, there was a chalkboard eraser flying through the air ... the eraser hit the girl on the side of her head!
She stopped talking.
After school the girl's mother came in to the classroom ... not to yell at the teacher threatening to sue her for everything she owned, but to apologize about how naughty her daughter had been. Now the teacher would be sued for everything she owned!
Teachers not being able to punish kids isn’t the only thing we should be worried about. Today, tons of kids are being misdiagnosed with ADD and ADHD. Kids that actually have ADD or ADHD can’t concentrate and are fidgety. Most kids I know that were probably misdiagnosed with these conditions are just really annoying and disruptive, not fidgety and unable to concentrate. Most of these kids are drugged. It seems to me that these kids are diagnosed with this because nobody wants to discipline them and teach them that there is an absolute right from wrong.
The really sad thing is, most of these kids are recommended to be diagnosed by their teachers!
Why are kids being labeled with these “disorders” because parents and teachers simply do not want, or can’t deal with a discipline problem? Why are we redefining things that have been the same for years? This is what society has become, redefining things for one’s own convenience.
We, as Americans shouldn’t stand for that.
“Make your educational laws strict and your criminal ones can be gentle; but if you leave youth its liberty you will have to dig dungeons for ages.”
