Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Why Johnny Can't Read

I haven't blogged in awhile and for that, I apologize. I've certainly been pissed off about enough events and happenings TO blog. For instance, I don't know WHY this country can't muster enough intelligence to vote in a President with a set of balls like Ronald Reagan's.

I don't care if you're a liberal Dem or if you're a Republican or if you're Green Party. I don't really care. We've had nothing but a series of bumblebutts in office since the Reagan years. Everyone wants to prance around and be politically correct and make sure that those individuals who DO speak out are prevented from buying football teams.

In two words, America, GROW UP. Just grow the frick up already. This is MY country. I was born here and I love my country. If you don't want to defend her to the sword rattling third world toilets, then get out of my country. If you don't want to take responsibility for YOUR part of this crappy economy, go live in Canada. And take Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi with you. If you don't want to work hard, use up what you have and make do without credit cards subsidizing a lifestyle you never worked for, get out of my country.

Barring that: Grow up and get your head out of your ass and back into business. Your life is a shambles. Your financial situation is bleak and your kids can't read. Why? Because you're lazy. You are fat and you are lazy and the reason you can't pay your bills is because you've learned nothing from the 1920's.

It's all fun isn't it? Using credit cards to buy clothes, meals in restaurants, French manicures, those stupid trendy blouses that look more like pregnancy shirts, name brand this, bought-at-the-mall that, a cell phone that can remote detonate your dishwasher...hefty loans for cars that show off just how "cool " you are.

Well, the Roaring Roller Coaster ride is over. And rather than live within your means, you've got credit card bills and car loans and quite possibly a house loan that is choking the life out of you. And now that the credit limits are maxed, the car needs repairs and the kids want a bigger and better cell phone, and you're deprived of the right to buy something new every day, you realize how petty and limited your life is.

Hey. I get the whole lure of the credit card thing. I do. I did it myself. Was I stupid? Oh God yes. Ridiculously stupid. I could make excuses like, "I was never taught anything about money" and I would be right. Doesn't absolve me though. I could make excuses about why I like nice things but it's pretty damn shallow. I was shallow. I was an absolute idiot. The difference? I'm not stupid anymore. We've used every ounce of money into constructing a debt snowball and now we have a few debts paid off, our car is paid off, we only have one car where we used to have two, and it's taking a long time to renovate our 112 year old Victorian Cape Cod cottage because we're paying for it as we go. We have a few more debts to pay off. And we make do.. A friend asked me why I was patching my husband's jeans the other day with those iron on patch thingies instead of buying a new pair of jeans. Well, why in the hell would I buy a whole new pair of jeans when these only have a couple of holes in them and can be patched. These jeans have tons of wear in them...more now that they're patched.

And guess what? No one cares. No one cares that they're patched. No one cares if they're new. No one gives a crap about a designer handbag either. At least I don't. I used to. I really did until I realized how stupid it made me look. And a lot of today's "designer" handbags are so ridiculously ugly, it's an insult. I mean, come on. Gold and silver lame' belong on kid's Halloween costumes, Vegas showgirls and Elvis jumpsuits. In short, gaudy, tacky and not to be taken seriously. And folks,... some of you MIGHT be carrying the Real Deal...but to me... it looks like a knock-off. That's right. No one cares because they pretty much figure you bought a knock-off so any effect you think it's having....isn't. And how's that pricetag working out for you?

But this is a blog about how Johnny can't read. Not why his Mommy would rather spend his college fund on her tacky designer handbags and passe' French manicures.

Johnny can't read for one fundamental reason:

Mom and Dad are lazy. That's it. Lazy. They don't care. Reading is "the school's job". That's the familiar refrain. That's first excuse I hear from parents who think worrying about the H1N1 is proof that they're being a good parent. "I'm/We a/are working mother/father/parents. I/we am/are doing my/our best.

Hey Mom and/or Dad... Your best? Your best isn't good enough. It's not even in the friggin ballpark.

Mom.. you had Johnny on your lunch hour. You took a long enough maternity leave to get some cool gifts, bitch about sleep deprivation and cause a ruckus at the mall because Victoria's Secret wouldn't let you use a dressing room that they keep for paying customers for you to be able to breastfeed our Precious Darling. Before you even knew what you had, you dumped his butt in daycare and got back to your precious job that you swear you just have to have in order to make ends meet.

If ends weren't meeting, why were you adding another mouth to feed and extra expense to the mix? But that's another blog. Now Johnny's in daycare and you have huge daycare costs. Johnny's not learning anything in daycare like his ABC's, making complete sentences, how to share, how to make friends or how to eat with a fork. When he comes home, he's dumped in front of television while you figure out if dinner will be catered by McDonald's or KFC that night because you couldn't organize your household to save your life. Oh, and you're just TOO tired. But you're not too tired to run to the mall to run up your credit cards for cute new clothes for work and lunches out and pretend you do all of this "for your child".

Now it's time for Johnny to go to school. But the only pre schooling he's ever gotten has come from a dirty, smelly overcrowded daycare where mothers like you dump their kids off with just enough Children's Tylenol in them to keep a temperature at bay while you pray he lasts through the day before you're called to come and get him before he infects everybody else.

You haven't taught him how to share, you haven't taught him discipline. In many instances, you haven't potty trained him either. He's never slept in his own bed. He doesn't sit still for longer than two minutes and warthogs have better dining manners than he does. He has no respect for authority, the world stops and moves at his every scream and he's gets everything he wants at the drop of a temper tantrum. Then you send his little butt to school to a teacher who has forty-five more just like him. And then you hamstring his teachers and school because you don't want your precious darling punished for behaving in the animal-like manner for which you have trained him. Now the teachers are being told they have to stand on their heads to get these kids to read and write and learn simple math when many of these kids have never held a fork in their hands. None of them have learned the word "no". On top of that, you pay your teachers just slightly better than what they would make working full time at Target. When the kids get home, you've gotten into a "I'm too tired" habit to even make them a nutritious dinner much less go over their homework. It's a dinner of processed or fast food and then hours of eye glazing television. It's toys and gadgets and games to shut them up and keep them from bothering you. At least until the next doctor's appointment where your little Chubsy has now been diagnosed with Type II diabetes and he's not even in the fifth grade.

And woe, woe, woe to the teacher who seeks to break your children out of this cycle by assigning homework and holding YOUR feet to the fire if it's not done. "What about soccer?" you cry. "What about football", you cry. "What about modeling school so he can become the next child star and support his parents on his child star wages until such time as he becomes a hasbeen and has to go into rehab" you cry.

Where in the hell are your priorities, American parents? Where did you get the idea that giving these spoiled brats a cotton candy life was a good idea? Because you want them to have what you didn't have???

Well... let's examine that. I would LOVE my kids to have what I didn't have. I plan to give my children what I never had. Want to know what that is: I'll tell you. I plan to give my children a home with a mother and a father who love each other and have a sound marriage. I plan to turn off the television unless "Unwrapped" or "How Do They Make That" comes on. (Or Live from Lincoln Center featuring classical music artists). Starting from three 1/2, my children are going to have small chores to do around the house. I know some of you think that's impossible but I've employed that tactic and if the children have consistency, these chores become habits: cleaning up your room, picking up toys, making the beds, putting clothes in the hamper, putting clean clothes away in the right drawers. They're going to have decent religious training. They're going to understand why we have traditions like Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter. That's it's not ALL about the dinner and the presents. They're going to be taught respect for authority, self respect and self esteem because they will have a sense of accomplishment. You work with these children until they understand a chore and why it's necessary to do it. My children will know music, and learning and be able to point out their home state on a damn globe. Especially my daughter. If, for some reason, she winds up as a contestant in a televised beauty pageant, she will be able to coherently answer the question of why children can't find their country on a globe. "I firmly believe that today's children cannot find their home country on a globe because their parents are lame and never taught them properly. You see, my parents made sure that we could find Iraq on a map even if we had to go down the public library and look at the atlas."

Get where I'm coming from now? If your daughter is in a beauty pageant and gives the kind of moronic answer that Miss South Carolina did in the Miss Teen USA pageant, you only have yourself to blame. And here's the comment that will probably piss all of you off.

Ready?

If your child fails at school, it's 100% your fault. Not shared responsibility. ALL of your responsibility.

You control the home your child lives in. You control his environment. You control what he wears. And to the mothers of teenage girls who dress a little better than your average street whore, this goes double. That lame excuse about letting her "express herself and her individuality" is bullshit. Who wants their daughter to express her inner slut with today's TrampWear found at Aeropostale and Abercrombie and Fitch? If you didn't buy those clothes, she could not wear them and the designers would have to come up with something a little more decent that parents WILL buy.

No. No passes. No "Get Out of Jail Free". "Do not Pass Go". Do not "collect $200".

Your fault, American Parents. 100%. You control their schedule. You control the rules they abide by. You decide what friends they can see and what friends will result in them getting arrested or pregnant. You decide what they watch on television, you monitor their internet and text messages, you monitor their chores and you know if they're hiding pot in their rooms. You're in their face, you're checked into their lives.

Militant? Ok, if that's how you choose to see it. But here's a wake up call. You're not the "cool parent" by letting them do their own thing. You're the "chump parent" if these kids have absolutely no respect for you or their home or enough self awareness to pitch in. Here's another wake up call: You're not doing them one single favor by doing this. You're not training them to be independent and take care of themselves. Parenting is not fun. It's not supposed to be fun. It's called being a parent and only Bill Cosby can make parenting look fun. It takes being a hard ass sometimes as well as tough as nuts consistency. But if you do not do this, you are setting your children up for a lifetime of struggles and clueless existence and I should know. The only things my mother was consistent in doing was berating me, lying to me, resenting me and destroying whatever self worth I had. I struggled for years as a young adult because I had never been taught to be independent. She didn't do it because she was trying to be a cool parent. She did it because she was lazy, neglectful and she just didn't want to bother.

And if I sound harsh and militant to you, I refuse to apologize. I went through hell in my childhood, teens and early adult years because of her neglect. No, I never got into drugs, sex or truancy although God only knows how I avoided that.

And although you may love your children or maybe you just don't know what in the hell to do with them because, unlike your other bright ideas, you can't sell this kit on Craigslist to someone else, the fact is that you're not doing them any favors by checking out or thinking of yourself first or dumping gifts on them.

What you're doing is setting them up for a life of struggles too. They don't know how to read, write, spell or learn anything. They have no work ethic. They cannot do for themselves because they don't know how because you didn't teach them and the schools are not responsible for teaching them everything. Especially not on the shit wages they earn these days.

Wake the hell up, American Parents. If not, then move out of my country and leave it to be people who actually want to work for what they get.

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