Wednesday 30 March 2011

I solemnly swear that I am up to no good (or at least I was)!!



Smarty pants brought home a lovely laminated certificate from school yesterday. At first I assumed it was an award of some sort. It turned out to be a promise, there laminated in black and white, that she would never use drugs and would not drink alcohol until she is 18. I asked was she given a choice about this, she said no, they were told to sign them and hand them back up.

As a parent I'm torn about how I should feel about this. On one hand I should be delighted that my daughter is promising things like this and that the school are pressing such issues. On the other hand it's complete bulls*#t, it means nothing, it's not a real promise. To the kids it's just writing your name on a piece of paper because you were told to.

I know this and the kids know it too. The problem with how we deal with these things is that the education system so often fails to see kids as human beings who deserve respect, honesty and not to be patronised. If they just got someone in to talk to them to say look, I know you'll be presented with drugs and alcohol before you're 18. I know a lot of you will probably drink before then and some of you may experiment with drugs. So just don't be an idiot. Don't get yourself an addiction that will take over your life and destroy it and those of everyone around you. Don't get yourself into situations where you're drunk in an unsafe environment where someone could take advantage of you etc. If they got people who have fallen foul of these things to come and talk to them it would probably help too. At the very least they should be honest with them and not just get them to sign pieces of paper against their will that they know mean nothing.

They had a talk on smoking yesterday as well. The guy appears to have been a bit of an idiot. He went way way over the top with the effects of smoking. Exaggerating them so far beyond the truth that my daughter who despises smoking found him ridiculous. The thing is the kids see through this crap. They all know someone who smokes, they see people smoking every day so to tell them that a 40 year old person who's smoked all their adult life will definitely look 60 or 70 is just insulting their intelligence and breeding a mistrust of the type of people who give these talks.

I suppose the issue itself and the dealing with it scares me too. We're heading, swift as a bullet for teenage-dom. I was not a good little girl, in fact I was very very very naughty indeed!! If it was taboo or forbidden I did it, if it made you high, low, laugh, cry, hallucinate penguins growing out of postboxes I sniffed it, drank it, smoked it, ate it. Loathe as I am to admit it, most of it never did me any harm what-so-ever!! I became addicted to almost nothing because I never did many of them more than once or twice. Yes, I smoked, became addicted and still am addicted to nicotine, but of all the other things I did, to have that be the only lasting consequence is a bit of a feat I think. Especially since some of the most well behaved people I know are as hooked on the fags as I am!!

So where the school and the education system fails I am supposed to pick up the slack. I am supposed to talk to my daughter frankly and openly about smoking, drink and drugs and their effects. Fecked if I'm going to be honest with her about drink and drugs. The smoking she knows all about, she knows I smoke like a bleedin chimney. She hates it, but it wouldn't surprise me if she did it at some point. I just hope she never ends up as completely hopelessly hooked as I am.

As for drink, I can see it now. Well Smarty Pants, I once drank so much vodka that I blacked out while still upright and walking, screaming my loaf off wandering some of the dodgyest streets in Dublin (and that was the least embarrassing, most blog-worthy example I could find) So eh, never drink that much vodka, ok!! And drugs. Well, my little girl, I remember doing mushies in Rembrant Square in Amsterdam once and losing about 3/4 of a day, in which I'm sure we wandered about and did things but to this day none of us can remember what they were (most definitely the tamest example I could think of and least likely to get me in any large amount of trouble, I didn't inhale and all that) So eh yeah, don't do drugs, drugs are bad m'kay!!

Obviously I can hardly tell her these things and the stance, if not the approach of the education system is one I agree with. Life is precious and interesting and exciting, it is not worth risking it all for one cheap high. The real highs in life are much more valuable and sustained than anything you can get from the grimy jacket of a dodgy looking bloke on O'Connell St. Drugs are bad, but in fairness, you can't beat an ice cold pint on a hot day!! Oh my!!


4 comments:

  1. I filled out a registration form for Boann's first primary school. On it, they asked what her religion is.

    If I had written anything like "catholic", "buddhist", "muslim", "thugee", etc., that would be the equivalent of signing her up for a lie. Just as ordering a person to sign a document whether they truly understand it is a lie (just as beating a confession out of someone "just say yes!" is the same as a lie)

    I wrote "she hasn't told us yet" in the box.

    My kids have not been baptised, they will not be "confirmed", and if their schools pull a stunt like that on them, I will tear up the documents in the teachers' faces - not because I want the kids to drink or smoke, but because I want them to make their own decisions about whether they do it or not.

    Not doing something because you've been ordered not to do it (by a law, habit, parent's rule, signature, etc.), doesn't make you a better person.

    Not doing something /when it's there for you whenever you want it/ is what really tests a person.

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  2. Oh my, indeed! But you turned out alright in the end!! :)

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  3. "She hasn't told us yet" Kae that's brilliant!! Mine are baptised more for the sake of tradition than anything else I suppose. They will always have the freedom to make their own decisions on religion, and most anything else really. We can only guide them really, any time we push them we'll most likely find they'll push back harder in the opposite direction so pushy parents are really doing themselves and their kids a disservice. They have to make their own choices and find their own path, all we can do really is make sure they have all the information they need and lead by example, which is scary in itself!!

    Fran I'll take your word for that!! ;)

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  4. We got married in the catholic church purely for tradition. I think Owen's parents heads would have exploded. We wanted to head off to vegas and have a corny two minute farce of a wedding. Since we were the first in both Catholic family's, we decicided to have a traditional wedding. Unfortunately, because of where we live, we have to raise our kids catholic. There isn't an option. But we're raising them open minded. I hope.

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