A School Valentine…About Lockdown Procedures

“All call” was the correct term. It is the announcement that goes out to the whole school via the loudspeakers (which are typicaly on radio silence during a lock down).

I had to read the sentence in green 6 times but I got it in the end. If you enter a room without a teacher and you can’t find the cards, don’t worry about it. “Your safety” is more important than finding the correct card to slide under the door. Just sit tight and don’t worry about the (useless) cards.

I read that line as “If you don’t know the card signals, the police will only tazer you instead of tazering you, then shooting you because we’re freaking out due to some overreactive school administrator.”

What color card do you use if you are the shooter? What color card do you use if the teacher is the shooter?

What a load of useless security theatre. Making us feel more helpless moment to wasted moment.

My head is spinning.

I am not even going to touch the lockdown stuff because, despite being highly educated and spending most of my career untangling statements made by idiots, I can’t understand it at all.

But if the kids can’t eat the candy in school, why does it have to be nut free?

Doesn’t the simple fact that you’ve shoved a card under the door announce to a potential attacker that one or more people are hiding in the room?

The lockdown stuff is kinda extreme but from what I understand standard protocol on how they are done. The worst part is when I substituted I knew if a school shooting ever happened when I was there our class was screwed. Because they don’t give subs keys. So no way to lock the door. So we would just have to barricade the door or hope nobody tries the door.

I don’t see the problem with the info about Valentines though. Yes, every kid should get a Valentine and its okay to tell the kids to wait to get home to eat all the candy. Because they are already getting candy, cupcakes, ice cream, etc at the party if they have a party. Also because of food allergies not a good idea to eat lots of candy in the classrooms.

When discussing the lockdown procedures our kid’s school had just been drilling right after they implemented them, my then 9 year old said “what if someone comes and starts shooting when we are outside at recess?”. Something I guess the adults never considered. Here they are drilling some scary procedure into my little kid’s minds about where to hide in the class if someone comes in shooting, and my kid gets out of it all that they are still completely vulnerable and basically screwed if someone decides to shoot at them on the playground (which to her is realistic because the school has them practicing for shooters in the school). I am trying to minimize it all saying how it is not going to happen, they are safe at school…but everyone knows teachers are smarter than moms. She wouldn’t stop worrying about it being a reality no matter how much I told her it wasn’t going to happen so I ended up telling her to lay down on the ground and play dead, which felt horrible to say, like I was playing into the hysteria.

Marcie’s comment is the saddest thing I’ve read today. It does make me wonder how often these lockdown drills are done and how much attention and detail is given during one.

In my part of Canada all we have are fire drills that are only done two to three times a year, yet my children aren’t worried there will be a fire at school. They were always a surprise to the students,everyone would line up all nice and orderly, giggling and happy to go outside for a break. Teachers would keep everyone in line but of course very calm. Never did we feel like we were in danger.

Reading what message kids appear to be getting from the lockdown drills it seems it’s more of an EVERYONE PAY ATTENTION BECAUSE THIS IS LIFE OR DEATH AND YOU NEED TO BE PREPARED BECAUSE IT WILL HAPPEN AND YOU WILL DIE lesson as opposed to a in the unlikely event that (an earthquake/fire/gas leak/suspicious person/Bengal tiger) happens we (go outside/on lockdown/call Sigfried and Roy etc..)that kids remember because the drill itself is an unusual event, a happy break from class a couple times a year.

If anyone has been part of the lockdown drills can you give some clarity to this. It can’t be that bad can it?

I can explain at least some of that word salad.

Essentially each class is given a set of colored cards with the room number, which in a lockdown or evacuation situation, tells the status of that particular class.

For instance, if the evacuated class is on the playground with the rest of the school, and there are no problems, it’s a green card. If the class is missing a student, or there is some other issue, that class has the “red” card, and denotes there’s a problem.

This usually means that a student was caught in the library,etc. and they need to check status of that student.

As for the rest of that note. What that is, I don’t even…

Homeschooling is starting to sound pretty good right about now…

…always assuming there aren’t any daltonic teachers, of course!

I suspect they’re all high on hamburgers.

@ifsogirl – you’ve got the solution right there. Every school needs a Bengal tiger patrolling the corridors. Said tiger is in the perfect position to institute its very own ‘nut free’ policy, beginning with whatever nut wrote the Valentine.

Personally, I love nut-free policies. Were I in the States, I would extend nut bans to cover, for example, every member of the NRA……

@Charla – hmmm, can’t quite believe that. No member of the NRA has ever gone mad with a gun?

Anyway, was just being a bit naughty. I know trying to convince roughly half, if not more, of the American population that guns aren’t actually as necessary to life as, say, oxygen, is a lost cause. Even my US based brother has joined the madness, and can’t wait until he becomes a citizen so he can carry a concealed weapon to, you know, battle all those criminals who are after him every day. Hopefully he won’t resort to defending himself against , say, random black teens in SUVs playing loud music he doesn’t like, but who knows? The crims are everywhere!!

Even likely to be wandering around school corridors everywhere, if this sort of silly lockdown nonsense is to be believed…

Lockdowns are useless, and counter productive. Fish in a barrel comes to mind.

There is absolutely no reason for the kids not to be able to junk out on candy. One day of candy won’t kill them.

As for bringing Valentines for everyone in the class, that is ridiculous. Recieving something from a friend has meaning. When you make it mandatory to give to everyone, it is now meaningless. Completely against this.

really Warren? So you are okay with the unpopular kid who maybe has special needs not getting any valentines? Or the only black kid not getting any valentines from any of the white kids?

They are stupid little paper valentines you get at CVS and they have enough in a box for the whole class so why not give one to everyone? I understand some people actually hand make them valentines but most people don’t. And so it is not any more effort to give one to everyone.

I really doubt you would be okay if your kid was the only kid in the class that did not receive a single valentine. You will probably come on here and say you would be fine with that, but that is nuts.

My kids bought some special Valentine gifts for their little girl friends who have given them presents over the school year and we are giving those out just to a few girls but we are still giving the little cheap character valentines to the whole class and our school requires you to do so anyway and I don’t have a problem with that.

Hineata: Guns are a requirement for anyone in this country that lives in rural areas. There is no patrolling police nearby. There is no animal control. There are wild animals that come on your property daily that can harm you. The police will take about an hour to get there. For rural people, guns are an absolute necessity. They use them to put down injured farm animals or scare off wild animals or hunt for food.

SOA -Hmmm, didnt realize that we were in such danger when we lived in the middle of nowhere in rural Georgia without a gun. Only thing dangerous that ever wandered into our yard was a rattlesnake and we handled that just fine with a hoe. The one and only time that a gun would have been nice was when we were out walking and found a deer with a leg caught in a fence. It would have been nice to be able to put it out of its misery faster, but a call to a neighbor got it taken care of eventually.

New Zealand is plenty rural. And if I remember correctly, hineata is a farm girl herself. Don’t think she’s going to buy the absolute need for guns in the country than I do. I don’t have a problem with guns (although I agree that the US obsession with them is insane), but you can live anywhere in the US without them. In some areas, they are definitely handy, but I’ve known many people who live in some of our most remote and dangerous places without them just fine.

No I do not have a problem with uneven Valentine Card tallies.

1. Kids do not need cards because people are forced to give them one.
2. Where we live the KKK does not run rampant, so race is not a problem.
3. A mandatory card is no different than the trophy for everyone idea. Meaningless.

Your description of rural is exactly where we live. Bears, wolves and coyotes, and no patrolling police. Yet nobody here carries a firearm for protection.

Like I said, if you live somewhere that to feel safe you need a gun…………then find somewhere better to live.

Warren: Not enough room in the cities for everyone to live there. Some people have to live in rural areas to farm or just to not overpopulate cities and suburbs. But unless we want to kill off all wildlife, then there will always be a risk of having to deal with and occasionally shoot wild animals. That is just reality.

Okay Dolly, I will be the one to say it.

GO GET SOME HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

@reziac – Not all food allergies are alike. You cannot make inferences about one food allergy based on your understanding of another. Google “can smelling peanuts cause an allergic reaction” and you’ll find a wealth of information about how this is a myth and why. My kids’ allergist who himself has a peanut allergy told me that this was a myth. There was even a scientific study done where people with a peanut allergy smelled peanut butter and a placebo (soy butter) … No reaction in either case.

I don’t consider myself an alarmist when it comes to my kids’ nut allergies. They go to plenty of places were nut products are around but I don’t freak out because I know smelling or being around nut products doesn’t cause reactions. Ingesting does. In other words, I am informed about facts about nut allergies and not relying on hearsay.

However, young children being … uhm, young, I am vigilant about them not accepting or eating food that have unknown ingredients because nuts are often “hidden” in a lot of food products (e.g., chocolate, candy bars, baked goods, etc). And, unlike wheat or gluten that is even more prevalent in food items, ingesting small amounts of peanuts can kill quickly — not just cause a very bad tummy ache. Have you read the back of a candy wrapper lately? Lots of scientific ingredients, written in very small letters. How can people expect an 8yo to decipher that? I even sometimes miss the “May contains nuts” fine print, myself.

Valentines and halloween makes me a little nervous for my young kids but I am thankful for the nut-free policy at school. It’s not fool-proof. Peanut candies have come home on several occasions (e.g. M&M peanuts, Resees Pieces) so that’s why I tell my kids that treats need to come home (not eaten at school) unless the package clearly says nut-free.

@Dolly – Donna is right, I grew up in rural areas. The lone policeman is usually hours away when you need the poor chap – that’s why we had a wrestling club, fire brigade etc :-). Still we didn’t generally (ever, actually, in my area) use guns to protect ourselves from people. We don’t have wild animals we need protection from, and if a cow or something decided to go you, the last thing you’d have time to do, as Warren aptly pointed out, is get out your gun, unlock your ammo etc.

Guns are great tools. They have some use in rural areas. However they are completely unnecessary in urban areas, (unless, I suppose, your urban area is Anchorage or somewhere that bears or other huge beasts generally roam, though what Warren said, again) as their only purpose would be to kill people. If the general populace wasn’t armed, then where would all these criminals who supposedly carry guns get them from?

In the five years my brother, for example, has lived in Seattle, home once upon a time to BTK and the Green River Killer (or are these the same guy?) he has never come remotely close to needing to protect himself with a gun. Neither has anyone else of his acquaintance. Yet somehow, somewhere, criminals are running rampant threatening ordinary citizens, and it is up to those ordinary citizens to protect themselves and others (aka Rambo or Arnie) using, of course, a gun. I am not sure why his brain has turned to mush like this – he was raised with more common sense.

Out of interest, have any of you ever been in a situation with people threatening you where a gun was useful?

Okay, a few points here:

1. Yes, I agree that lockdowns with coloured cards are a stupid idea, because they indicate to the shooters that “people are hiding in the library/music room/science lab/whatever,” and thereby make the shooters’ job easier.

2. About the Valentines, where I am, the “Valentines for all,” and the Valentine parties in general, are only really a thing in early elementary school. I only remember them in grades K-3, and there might have been one in grade 4 also, but I remember feeling “too old” for it that year, so my dad took me and my brother skiing that day instead. My brother was only in grade one then, but I guess he wanted to be “mature” like me. Anyway, I don’t see the harm in younger kids doing a Valentine for everyone. At that age, they’re mostly too young for cliques, etc., so Valentines for everyone make sense. If they want to do something special for their closer friends, they can invite them to a private Valentine party at their house (I went to a few of those as a kid), and/or make them a special Valentine, or a Rainbow Loom bracelet or something, and give it to them in private. I don’t believe in the “must invite everyone, or all of one gender to your birthday party” edicts, because it’s a true imposition on a child to have to have the class bully in their house on their birthday, but a nominal “punch it out and sign your name” Valentine card is maybe thirty seconds worth of effort, and the whole ritual helps to lighten up a depressing February. I agree that Valentine’s Day parties could be done without the cards, and kids could make Valentines for their parents instead, but the ritual is so ingrained into our culture at this point, there’s really no way around it–if you say “no Valentines,” then kids will still bring them for their BFF’s, less popular kids will have their feelings hurt, and it’d precipitate all the problems you’re trying to avoid.

3. About the “don’t eat the Valentine candy in class,” yeah, I agree with previous posters–the candy should be saved for later if the class is having a party with other sugary treats. You wouldn’t want anyone making themselves sick to their stomachs, and also, some parents TRY to get “peanut-free” candy, but mess it up. For example, a hurried parent might walk into Wal-Mart, see a sale on plain M&M’s, and think, “Okay, Sam’s friend Susie can’t eat peanuts, so I’ll get these M&M’s, because they don’t have peanuts. Done and done.” In actuality, this isn’t true–plain M&M’s contain peanut oils, because they share a production line with the peanut M&M’s. So, if there’s a party in class, OR if there’s an allergic student in the class, then the treats should be saved for later. Even if the allergic student is only ingestion-sensitive, it’s no fun to have to wait to eat your candy while everyone else is enjoying theirs, because you’re five years old and you can’t independently read food labels well enough to be safe. If I was planning a Valentine party for little kids, I’d probably just do a craft that they could take home to their parents, an indoor game or two, with punch and cookies for snacks, then take the kids outside to play in the snow, both to burn off the sugar, and also, to streamline dismissal/pick-up time. I don’t know why this isn’t a universal thing.

4. I also agree that school officials should use proper spelling, grammar, and syntax. My mom had this same complaint with a lot of my teachers (and a few principals) when I was in elementary school. There was the grade two teacher who spelled “research” as “reaserch,” the principal in grade eight who posted literature about heart disease without reading it (nothing like seeing “heart disease causes erectile dysfunction” plastered all over a K-8 school), and many, many other incidents in between.

You have obviously never dealt with a real feral cat. Those things are huge because to survive in the woods they are tough and large. Like 15 to 20 pounds huge cats. They are not domesticated at all. Strays and ferals are different things. Ferals no longer have the relationship with humans that domesticated cats do. They will attack humans and domestic cats and dogs. They will kill domestic cats.

Warren: You don’t know what you are talking about. My mom hates hunters. She has had to chase hunters off her property multiple times. She feeds deer on her property, feeds birds, feeds gophers. That is why she moved out in the country to interact with wildlife. But some wildlife can be dangerous. They would rather have a gun when going walking in case they meet a mountain lion or bear.

That is worst first thinking thinking that just because someone has a firearm they are a gun toting maniac who shoots first and asks questions later and goes around killing things all the time. Most gun owners are responsible citizens. Now who is the hysterical thinker?

Cynthia wrote: So to me, the comment about a kid having a “mild allergy” because he reacts through “ingestion only” is so odd. People can die from eating peanuts. I’d say that’s pretty severe.

You are right Cynthia. My use of terms wasn’t very well put. I know a couple of children with peanut allergies so severe that they are at risk short of ingestion. Maybe I misunderstood, and the risk is from skin contact or something. (Which of course makes anyone near them eating a peanut product a risk because surfaces could become contaminated.) One child that I know is so allergic to so many kinds of foods that after countless hospitalizations and near-fatal reactions, he was put on artificial food fed by tube! (It was amazing how quickly he became hale and hearty after he started to tube feeding. The change was dramatic.) I know for a fact that he has numerous allergies that are sensitive to proximity alone. I thought peanuts was one of them, but it’s possible I misunderstood about that. Thanks for the correction. Obviously, a child with allergies as severe as his can’t safely attend school anyway. He is homeschooled. Most kids with his condition are.

In any case, I think you and I agree that nut-free policies aren’t necessarily wacko. In many cases there are legitimate reasons for them. 🙂

SOA
Yes I do know what I am talking about. By your accounts, your parents are shooting and killing many times. I live in an area with just as much wildlife, other than snakes, as them, if not more. And the only time we even hear gunshots is during prescribed hunting seasons. Niether me nor my neighbors are out there shooting at animals, because they are around our property. That is sociopathic behaviour.

It is also obvious from your posts here and on other articles in FRK, that you live your life in fear. You have more excuses for unacceptable fears and behaviour than one can shake a stick at.

Your mom hates hunters yet they kill animals all the time, for nothing more than the kill. She also threatens people with her gun. What I do know for a fact is that I would stay far away from your Mom, she is a danger to herself and society.

On lockdowns – I am in charge of health and safety where I work. I’ve been sure not to have a single lock-down drill. We do have a shelter in place procedure, but it only goes into effect with an order from Command.

After Sandy Hook, my job went from emergency planning to getting everyone to stop panicking about emergency planning. We had procedures before, they’re still adequate – we had thought of the possibility, know what to do, know how unlikely it is, and need to spend our time teaching.

On Valentines – I’m against ‘Valentine’s for everyone.’ There is rejection in life, learn to live with it. Giving them to everyone makes them meaningless. Who wants a Valentine they know they received only because someone had to give it to them?

Why not require that if I buy my date dinner, I buy dinner for the whole restaurant? Or the whole country, for that matter?

Emily,

If someone wants to give cards to everyone in the class that is fine, should that be their desire. Good for them.

On the other side of the coin, why is it acceptable to force a kid to give a card to someone they don’t like, or want to give a card to. Oh and by the way, if you want to give cards to just your friends, you can’t unless you give one to the people you don’t like.

I understand that their are social outcasts, and special needs kids, but I also understand that my kids do not have to constantly make meaningless gestures just to appease them. On holidays my kids have the right to enjoy the day without having to constantly be politically correct and a social worker. They have the right to like and not like people, and I am tired of others saying that isn’t right.
I have people I love, like and tolerate. I also have people I wouldn’t wave at from a distance. Life is life, live with it.

@Warren–Fair enough. Would you be happy if it was a “Valentine craft made at school, followed by snacks and outdoor play, not necessarily in that order” party, followed by an OPTIONAL Valentine exchange that could take place after school/off school property? That way, the kids could give Valentines to whoever they like (or not), the kids who aren’t likely to receive any won’t have to see Popular Polly getting 30 Valentines while they get none, and the kids with parents who forgot or don’t have the time/money/energy to buy or make Valentines, wouldn’t have to participate at all. Of course, this is all hypothetical, because I think you told me that your kids are past the typical “school Valentine party” age, but it seems like a decent compromise for kids who are in that age bracket. I know that rejection happens, but it’s really not necessary to create as many opportunities as possible for the less-popular kids to get rejected. They already experience it regularly, when nobody wants to play with them at recess or sit with them at lunch, or pick them for their team in gym class, or choose them as a partner/fellow group member for collaborative projects or field trips, or attend school dances with them, and so on, and so forth.

Many people are tempted to blame these kids for having “poor social skills” or similar, but often, kids get rejected for wearing the wrong brand of sneakers, or being overweight, or being introverted, or doing too well in school (or not well enough in sports), or liking the wrong kind of music, or having a stutter, or glasses, or braces, or any number of really stupid reasons. It’s possible to be a perfectly nice kid who just doesn’t fit in, and often, being constantly told you don’t fit in, makes those perfectly nice kids, not so nice anymore, because of having their faces rubbed in the fact that they’re somehow “less than.”

So, I’m not saying that school Valentine parties where kids can give cards to just their friends, are the cause of this, but I agree with the majority that feels a bit icky about the practice. Also, when I was in the “school Valentine party” age range, there was just something about that day–we’d all be nicer to each other, maybe because we’d gone through the act of doing Valentines for everyone, maybe because of the general atmosphere of the day, but it seemed like a day to bury the hatchet for a bit, and I’m reasonably sure that “selective Valentines” wouldn’t have had that effect. I know you don’t agree with this, but that’s how I feel. I’m not going to attack anyone for disagreeing with me, but FRK has always been a place where people can safely express their opinions, so that’s what I’m doing.

One more thing–if the school in question decides to go the route of “no Valentine exchange at school,” it’s better to rephrase that in positive terms. So, instead of “We’re not exchanging Valentines at school,” most kids would do better hearing, “We will be making crafts/playing outside/going ice skating/watching the Charlie Brown Valentine movie/making cards and cookies and delivering them at the local retirement home.” Actually, I like the “community outreach” idea best, because that way, the kids are focused on working together to do something kind for others, rather than individually keeping a running tally of how many Valentines they did or didn’t get.

@Warren–Ordering lunch at work is a “basic sustenance” thing, and it was always meant to be individual. Celebrating Valentine’s Day (or Halloween, or Christmas) at school, is supposed to be about the whole class (or sometimes even the whole school) celebrating together, and therefore, the festivities should (reasonably) allow everyone to participate. This might mean doing Valentines for everyone, for the very littlest kids. For older kids, it might mean thinking a bit outside of the (mail) box, and planning a sledding-and-hot-chocolate party, or a movie-and-popcorn party, or a co-operative mission to make Valentines for the elderly/infirm/homeless/whatever, instead of (or even in addition to) yet another Valentine’s Dance. In any one of these cases, the kids would still exchange Valentines on their own, as they like, but keeping it out of school, or at least out of the forefront of the festivities, would help ensure that everyone can at least enjoy SOMETHING about the day. Yes, rejection happens, but in my mind, part of the “in loco parentis” deal that teachers sign up for, is helping to protect young people’s emotional well-being. That could reasonably include making some effort at giving ALL of the kids at least some positive memories of their time in school, instead of setting things up so that their lives at school are a nonstop parade of rejection all day, every day. That’s not blackmailing; it’s being a responsible and compassionate adult, and setting the tone for the celebration. Most kids like when adults do this, because it gives them some idea of what to expect, and what’s expected of them.

Emily,

Mandatory giving and mandatory sympathy are just wrong.

What is so wrong about a child not giving a Valentine Card to someone they do not like, do not hang with?
Sorry bout the kid that gets none. Maybe a wake up call to be more outgoing, and friendly. You have to also think of the others. My daughters both had classmates they really didn’t want to give cards to during the years. It was actually something they resented having to do, and were uneasy about actually giving them. I told them they didn’t have to. You cannot force people no matter what age to be nice to everyone, and to do so is wrong.

Ugggghhhhh… I freaking HATE V-Day. Awkward for everyone, it would seem. I’m with Warren on the “mandatory giving” thing. I am allergic to receiving “have-to” offerings from people who are just avoiding shame and guilt. Blah!!

That said, I have done my turn preparing “mandatory” classroom valentine cards for everyone in the class. I did it with resentment, I secretly wondered if anyone would even notice if my kid didn’t participate, I didn’t like the whole exercise. The manufactured Valentine cards for little boys to give out just floored me. Superheroes shoving their fists out of the card with captions saying something anti-social. Jeez. Really? What is the freaking point? To waste more card stock?

My earliest memories of 1970s-era Valentine’s Day school celebrations involved shoeboxes covered in tinfoil, and tons of disappointment. There wasn’t any candy to speak of, if I recall correctly.

Then I transferred to a school that was single sex. And we drew names out of a hat. So we just made one Valentine for a random kid in our class. I remember liking that arrangement.

In Junior High, I seem to remember it being a non-event.

In High School, there was a fundraiser where the Student Council pre-sold carnations in different colours to be delivered to recipients throughout the school day. Oh, man, was that mortifying. I remember being in grade 9 and getting not one. The cheerleaders with the flowing, hot-rollered hairdos and lip-gloss smiles had armfuls of the things. Awkward, as I say.

As a grown-up, I don’t touch V-Day with a long pole. In my relationship, it is a non-event, like the “Parent Days” and Christmas. Even on my birthday I don’t want gifts. It all feels false and mandatory to me, and unless it’s actually coming from the heart, it means nothing but obligation. What could possibly poison a relationship more than that?

And lockdowns? Oh. My. God. “Love and Lockdowns.” That’s a classic.

“I am allergic to receiving “have-to” offerings from people who are just avoiding shame and guilt. Blah!!”

I have to ask, are some of your kids really think like this?

I can’t name a single kid in any of the 3 schools my child has attended who would, at this young age, choose to exclude specific people from valentines. I can name many who would rather not be bothered by the whole thing at all and I don’t think giving valentines should be mandatory (and isn’t at our school). But I can’t think any any who would want to give valentines to some kids, but not others. Not at ages 4-8.

@Anonymous This Time–I like the “Secret Valentine” idea. At a co-ed school, it could probably be modified so that the boys draw names out of one hat, and the girls out of another, or the boys and the girls write their names on colour-coded slips of paper (blue and pink, or something like that). I remember colour-coding when we drew roles in drama class in high school, because our teacher didn’t like the idea of females playing male roles, and vice versa. Anyway, here are some other things that we did to celebrate Valentine’s Day in high school, that were meant to be inclusive:

-The Heart Game: Each person gets a heart with his or her name on it, worn on a string like a necklace. For Heart Day (usually Valentine’s Day itself), nobody can talk to anyone of the opposite sex. If you do, you have to “give that person your heart.” The people who have a lot of hearts come to the office at the end of the school day, where the principal does the final tally, and the person with the most hearts wins the game and gets a prize. I don’t remember if we played the game with just one winner, or one boy and one girl winner, but it was all in good fun.

-The Post-It Game: This was done one grade at a time when I was in high school, usually beginning with the grade nine students the Monday of Valentine’s Day week, and finishing with the OAC’s on the Friday. Anyway, the members of the student council would get a whole bunch of Post-Its (heart-shaped for Valentine’s Day, or regular squares if United Way Week or Spirit Week didn’t coincide with Valentine’s Day), write one student’s name on each Post-It, and post them around the school. The object of the game was to find your name by the end of your grade’s designated day. Once you did this, you could take the Post-It to the office at the end of the day, and claim a prize (usually a chocolate bar, or something smaller than the Heart Day prize, because only one person, or maybe it was one boy and one girl, could win at Heart Day).

-The Dating Game: A “game show” in the cafeteria at lunch time, where couples would sign up, and it was like Match Game–they’d have to answer questions like, “What would your partner say his/her favourite song is?”; and the couple with the most matching answers would win. Watching this was as much fun as playing it, because a lot of the answers (and mismatch between the answers) was funny.

-School dance was deliberately advertised as a low-key event where it was perfectly fine to go alone, as platonic friends, or in groups. In fact, it was kind of dorky to get completely dressed up for one of those “casual” dances, like you would for semi-formal or prom. We’d usually underscore the “casual” theme, by making it a blacklight dance or something.

Anyway, these are just three examples that I remember. It helped that Valentine’s Day usually fell in the middle of Spirit Week, so there’d be theme days, movie buy-ins, make-your-own sundaes, a student-teacher hockey game, and all kinds of other fun activities throughout the week, so Valentine’s Day was celebrated, but it wasn’t the be all, end all of the month, or even the week–so, if you didn’t have a date on Valentine’s Day, you still had a whole week of fun, games, and ice cream at school. None of this was done to spare anyone’s feelings, per se; it was just a tradition we had. Some people didn’t participate, but for those who did, I think it was a great way of building community. I know that some of the events were “buy-ins” (so, you’d pay a dollar or two to go to the movie or the student-teacher hockey game instead of going to class), and they might have been a bit of a disruption to the normal class schedule, with so many people attending the events, but they were set up in such a way so that you were either in class or at the event, and you couldn’t just pay to skip. Also, my school valued community, and felt that students learned better in a place where they felt like they belonged, so they let it happen. We usually had United Way Week in the fall, Spirit Week in February, and scattered events at other times in the year as well. I was on student council (and on the Morning Show, and in the band, and on the band executive), and I learned a TON from helping with events around the school. I learned about teamwork, and community spirit, and the value of making people happy. I think our teachers knew this, so they looked the other way if we missed a few classes to make it happen. Anyway, those are my memories of Valentine’s Day in high school, and none of them involve rejection, or “mandatory giving or sympathy either,” even though I wasn’t really one of the “populars.” So, maybe there’s something to be said for doing things this way.

We did the whole have to bring a Valentine for every kid in the class when I was a kid. It did not bother me. Even when I had to take the one second to make one for the one or two kids I did not like. It was not a big deal.

And yes, to what someone said about it gives the kids practice writing their names if nothing else.

I have never heard of a school that did not do the bring everyone a Valentine if they actually did Valentine parties and celebrations at school.

I can’t believe someone is pitching a fit about having to give a Valentine to every kid when those boxes you buy have 25 in them which is enough for every kid.

Warren: Sorry but I am doubting you actually have an autistic child. You would never say that someone should be more outgoing or friendly like it was something someone can just decide to do if you dealt daily with a child with autism. Some kids with autism are really likeable (like my son) and have lots of friends. Others are not sociable at all and have no friends. It that somehow their fault? Its not their fault.

My son has a friend that is in fifth grade that literally had no friends till he met my son. He said my little 5 year old was the first friend he ever had. He is autistic too and they met through the special ed room. He is a sweet boy but has issues he can’t help. It breaks my heart thinking how hard school has been for him. He does not have an ideal home life either so that makes it even worse.

Instead of being all “maybe he should be more outgoing” our family has gone out of our way to make him feel special. He started out not even acknowledging me to greeting me by name and talking to me. Because I took the time and effort to reach out to him and try really hard to get to know him. If I just wrote him off as not outgoing and unfriendly I would not have made that progress. He never got a Christmas present from a friend at school before he met my son. We make a point to give him Valentines and presents and invitations and cards for every little school event because he is not getting them from kids in his own grade.

Maybe instead of telling others how they fail at life, we should try to help them succeed at life.

Also, Warren, I forgot about the inevitable “kid who tries to participate, but still gets shafted.” This kid (who may be unpopular because of shyness, lack of athletic ability, or wearing the “wrong” clothes, etc.), will dutifully bring Valentines for the whole class, only to get few or no Valentines in return. That kind of throws a wrench in your edict of “Don’t like it, don’t participate,” which is why I feel that the focus should shift to activities where everyone CAN participate. As adults, we have the perspective to understand that a paper bag full of generic punch-out Valentines from classmates isn’t a huge deal, but to a five-year-old, or even to an insecure pre-teen, it is a big deal.

Anyway……we both still agree that school lockdowns are stupid, right?

Emily: thank you. that is really sweet. I see my own son in that boy in some ways and so my heart just wanted to treat him as I would want my own son treated. We are going to miss the heck out of him next year when he goes to middle school. They hang out together in the special ed room every Friday and he is so sweet and patient with my son showing him how to do things with Legos and play computer games. I hope he does okay in middle school. I know how hard middle school can be socially.

On a good note I found something slightly better than poptarts my son will eat for breakfast before school. He likes biscuits a lot so we are going to start baking those the night before and saving them for breakfast the next morning. He ate two this morning. I just gotta mix it up because if he gets them every day it will burn him out on them and then he will refuse to eat again.

About the carnations, etc., we might have had those in high school too; I honestly don’t remember. We also did candy-grams, and one year, we did singing telegrams, but we didn’t make it just a “couples” thing–platonic friends could send them to each other too. I don’t remember exactly how it worked, but nobody felt badly if they didn’t get one (most people didn’t get them), and nobody felt (too) embarrassed if they got an obviously romantic one from someone who they didn’t like “that way.” Like I said, I think it was the fact that there was just so much activity going on in the days surrounding Valentine’s Day, that there wasn’t really much time to fixate on any one thing, and the “focal point” activities were always things that everyone (or at least most people) could participate in. It was, literally, “Oh, I didn’t get a candy-gram. That’s okay–there’s a dollar sundae bar outside the cafeteria, and then this afternoon, the teachers are playing against the students in the hockey game. It’ll be SO funny to see the principal on skates.” So, that way, the lack of whatever-o-gram became a mere blip in the day/week/month, rather than a major tragedy.

@Gravy–Your line of reasoning is akin to telling people who’ve been raped, that it was their fault for walking outside after dark, or wearing a certain kind of clothing, or drinking alcohol, when none of those things are true. It’s also akin to telling someone that it was their fault they got robbed, because they shouldn’t have left their house. Rape is caused by rapists, robbery is caused by robbers, and child abduction is caused by child abductors. It wasn’t the girl’s fault for walking to her friend’s house alone, or her parents’ fault for letting her, if they felt she was responsible enough to handle it. That’s what Free-Range Kids is about–not denying your kids age-appropriate freedoms and responsibilities out of fear that “something could happen.” The answer is for the police to crack down on TRUE crime–not things like letting your kids play outside, or walk to school/friends’ houses/the park alone, or being male and taking your kid to the playground/library/mall/kids’ section of chapters/swimming pool/theme park one-on-one. The answer is for people to start embracing community more, instead of fearing “strangers” and hunkering down in their houses with their various screened devices and junk-food snacks (although, the occasional round of Candy Crush Saga, or snack of actual candy, is okay). Seriously, though, if people in a neighbourhood know each other, then someone could have thought, “Gee, that’s not Jenny’s father, and she’s kicking and screaming. Jenny’s father would never forcibly pick her up/drag her into the car, Jenny doesn’t normally kick and scream, and that’s not Jenny’s father’s car either. This looks suspicious. I’m going to take down the license plate number and call the police.” Concerned Neighbour would call the police, not because Jenny was outside alone and “something could happen,” but because something WAS happening, and someone was actively trying to hurt her. See the difference between community spirit and being a busybody? Anyway, my point is, community spirit presupposes that kids and young people are a part of the community too, and have the right to come and go and interact with the community as they wish and are able to, and only stepping in if there’s actually a problem. The approach people are taking now, of “Keep kids inside/supervised,” presupposes that kids are second-class citizens who can’t be trusted with one second of independence until they’re eighteen, at which point they’re cut loose and expected to be magically “adults.” That is, unless they’re male–they’re cut loose from the leash of “child protection,” but promptly tied to the leash of “suspected pedophilia,” by virtue of being adult and male. Now they’re the ones who people are trying to “protect” their children FROM. See how toxic this is? The chances of Something Happening are so slim, but the chances of kids being stunted if you keep them tethered to you for eighteen years, for fear of Something Happening, are pretty much 100%.

The more comments I read (ignoring Gravy), the gladder I am Valentine’s Day over here is just for teens and adults in a romantic relationship (I’ve never heard of someone getting a card from an anonymous lover, so…).
It all sounds so meaningless. It also seems like just another excuse to give candy to little kids, and to reinforce that love = candy, and attention = candy, too, and friendship is, and even a declaration of “I do not absolutely despise you” to a classmate.
And that with all the added trouble of food allergies, pffffff…
(Okay, I admit that a bottle of good wine probably wouldn’t work with 5yos 😛 )

@Donna – your daughter sounds lovely. Unfortunately, though, there are some pretty nasty 4 to 8 year olds out there, believe it or not. I am thankful that we also do not celebrate Valentine’s Day in our schools, usually – the odd teacher might get flowers sent to her class by her partner, and at high school they sometimes use the day as a fundraiser, but certainly where I live it’s a non-event school-wise.

@Warren – one of my daughters was pretty much rejected by her classmates between ages 4 – 9 (when she switched schools, due to the other daughter needing more academic ‘rigour’). She was tiny (still is), speaks like a whiskey-drinking lifetime smoker (strange stuff down her throat), was physically very delayed and was sick often. She couldn’t run at much more than a snail’s pace, is partially deaf etc, etc. None of the issues that made her very different from her classmates were things she could do anything about, and neither could we do much about them (in spite of the mucho dollaros we spent on gym, speech therapy, glasses, tuition etc., etc.). In spite of being a very social little girl – she was always willing to attempt to talk and play with those around her – she simply had to deal with getting shut out, ignored, pushed around occasionally (fortunately most bullies around here will not physically take on someone much smaller, as it doesn’t add to their street cred) and talked about. She is blessed with perseverance and a great deal of toughness, so she did manage to ride it out without being crushed, but it was very hard work. I will say also that watching her walk off to school every day determined to find good friends, and seeing her wander in the door after school dejected was certainly tough on we parents too.

In the end the new school was her saving grace (medically speaking, too – the buildings turned out to better insulated).

Anyway the point I am making is that much of the time kids are bullied and excluded through no fault of their own. In my daughter’s case she got on fine in the new environment, but some kids are not blessed with that inner toughness that allowed her to retain herself to that point, and social exclusion etc can be soul-destroying.

At the end of the day, thinking about others and reaching beyond yourself to give a card to every child in a class is not that difficult, and it would be one less area in which the ‘different’ child has to face rejection….

@SOA-
Biscuits sound YUMMY for breakfast. Mmmmm. Changing habits (especially picky eaters) is hard work. Good job!

@Donna – amen! :-).

@Papillio – damn… :-). And there I was sure I had a solution to Friday afternoons, LOL!

Why are kids not allowed to not like, and therefore not have anything to do with someone?

There is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

And Donna, no my kids do not have to be nice to everyone. They must be civil, and not mean, but I will never insist they be nice to everyone.

@Warren–Disliking someone isn’t the problem; publicly snubbing them is–and, obviously giving everyone a Valentine EXCEPT the one unpopular kid in the class, is a public snub, and even more so if everyone does it. Like I said before, “selective Valentines” were phased out years ago, long before my childhood, because of hurt feelings. Now you and other people are saying that “universal Valentines” are a bad idea, because they don’t allow kids to choose their own friends. Well, with my proposed solution of separating Valentine exchanges from class parties, and having the kids celebrate by ice skating, or sledding, or painting ceramic plates (or whatever) for their parents, or helping people in need, kids still wouldn’t be pressured to give Valentines to anyone they disliked, and the unpopular kids wouldn’t have their faces (yet again) rubbed in the fact that they’re unpopular. One would think that that solution was a “win-win,” but you seem fixated on returning to the old tradition of “selective Valentines,” which can unfortunately devolve into a school-sanctioned popularity contest, even if that isn’t the adults’ intention. But, if you want to talk about wake-up calls, teaching life lessons, etc., why is it always the unpopular kids who have to learn the “lessons?” Why not teach ALL the kids the lesson of, “Our class is a safe space, where we value everyone equally?” It might even be possible to have the kids vote on (or discuss and come to a consensus) whether or not they want to do a class party with Valentines for everyone, or a different activity where Valentines aren’t involved.

“Why are kids not allowed to not like, and therefore not have anything to do with someone?”

Kids are. Just like adults are. This has absolutely nothing to do with feelings whatsoever. However, we do all have to learn to deal civilly with people that we don’t like. They will be in every aspect of your life. Any group outside of your social network is going to include people you don’t like. Heck, even your social network will possibly even include people you don’t like in the form your best friend’s significant other.

You can’t just “not have anything to with them.” If you want to maintain a relationship with your best friend, you have to be able to be civil to the wife. You don’t need to heap love on her, but you do need to be able to exchange pleasantries and the occasional nicety. If you want last in the workforce, you have to be able to get along with people you don’t like. You don’t have to heap love on co-workers that you don’t like (or the ones you do), but you do have to offer them a treat if you offer it to the rest of the office, invite them to lunches involving the whole office, join in birthday celebrations for them just as you would anyone else, etc. Doing otherwise reflects badly on you.

Nobody is saying that a child needs to bring heart-filled boxes of candy or roses for everyone in the school. But, come on, a $.01 card that you do nothing other than slap your name on is not a great statement of friendship by any stretch of the imagination. Refusing to do that minimal effort for everyone is just mean.

“Some kids chafe at doing that—they don’t want to give even an innocuous Mickey or SpongeBob or Superman Valentine to the class bully, or the kid who eats paste, because they read more into these cards than adults would.”

I disagree with this entirely. Kids read far far LESS into these valentines than the adults here seem to be. My daughter understands that they are not declarations of love or even friendship just like she understands that the clerk at the grocery store is not in love with her simply because she says “Happy Valentine’s Day.”

The reason I gave the ugliest card to the kid I didn’t like (and I think that I was the only one who said it) was to be mean in my own extremely immature way. I didn’t do it because I was chafed at having to give him/her a card. I did it because I wanted to give him/her something ugly.

Giving cards to the select few (which again is not a universal tradition unless it dates back beyond my own 43 years) isn’t about love any more than giving to the whole class is. It is about social power. The kids fall all over themselves to give cards to the popular kids, despite the popular kids being mean to them, and refuse to give a card to the kid who eats paste, despite the fact that he is their best friend outside of school.

correction….it is the good friend’s wife we cannot stand, like Donna, not the friend himself

When did this devolve into a whirlwind of vicious name-calling? I never meant for that to happen, just because I don’t agree with Warren on “Valentines for the selected few” being the best way to go. We agree on a lot of other things, so this isn’t a make-or-break debate that determines who is Right and who is Wrong for all time, and disagreeing doesn’t make anyone a bad person. I don’t think Warren is a bad parent–bad parents don’t help with their kids’ sports teams and Girl Guides, and hold nonstop pool parties for the whole neighbourhood all summer. That still doesn’t mean it’s okay to call Donna a bitch, because, besides the fact that it’s inappropriate, she isn’t, and I’m sure she gets invited to a lot of places…..but, my point is, I think that, a lot of the time, the subject at hand gets obscured by personal insults. Maybe we should just collectively agree that we’re not going to go for the jugular anymore–so, no more attacking anyone’s character. I’m not a parent, but I believe that calling someone a bad parent is an attack on their character, because even though kids are individuals, parents put a lot of themselves into raising them–or, at least, they should. Maybe this forum should have a private messaging system, so that if anyone has a problem with a specific member (or if people just want to exchange phone numbers or something), they could handle it privately. I know there’s Facebook, but not everyone has it. Anyway, this would be Lenore’s decision, and she’s away until the 26th, but maybe she’d be open to setting that up when she gets back.

Emily, Warren has shown a total lack of civility in every single thread that he posts in. It isn’t just this one where he is specifically saying that civility doesn’t matter, even when talking about very young children, but every single time his fingers hit the keyboard. He can’t make through a single thread without spewing insults and obscenities at everyone who disagrees with him. I have serious doubts that this is truly how he acts at home, but if it is, it amounts to teaching a lack of civility to his children and I imagine that his children will be chips off the old block because that is all they know. I do find that sad for them. Take that for what you will as a state of his parenting.

LOL, so it is fine for Donna to make veiled insults, but for me to be upfront about it is wrong.

And yes, I should not have been baited by Donna’s insult, but I did.
Emily just don’t fool yourself. Just because Donna does things in a way that is under her breath, does not make her civil or upstanding. Personally I have much more respect for someone that is upfront and honest. Two qualities people like Donna sorely lack.

Dear Donna,
I love how you seem concerned for my kids. Darlin, they have integrity and are not afraid to take a stand. Unlike what you are teaching yours. The children to whom sympathy needs shown are yours. Being taught to lie, sit on the fence and follow. Sorry but someone that would allow a person to assault their child, because they don’t want to offend them should not be critisizing another’s parenting.

Donna – good points on universal Valentines. You’re right, I was filtering it through both adult eyes and high school teacher eyes. Now that you explain it from an elementary perspective, it makes more sense. Thanks.

SOA
So not liking everybody makes someone mean? Are you really that freaking stupid?

I have met some real morons in my time, but you Dolly are the dumbest of them all.

Disliking someone isn’t mean, but publicly insulting/excluding them is mean. So, calling someone a dumb moron is mean, making a show of inviting everyone EXCEPT the person you dislike to a social gathering is mean (I was taught as a child not to mention these things around those who weren’t invited), and again, I think making a show of giving everyone a Valentine card except the person you dislike, or everyone except the “weird” or “unpopular” kid, is also mean. It’s fine to not seek out the company of those you dislike, but that has to be done quietly.

I think this practice is good training for adulthood–for example, I had a few people in university glom onto me, when I didn’t particularly like them, so if I didn’t want to hang out with them, I stressed what I did want/need to do that day–it was always, “Oh, I have plans with Sarah,” or “I have orchestra that night,” or “I have a painting that’s due tomorrow.” After so many times of not having time for them, they figured I wasn’t interested, and moved on. Sometimes, the reasons/excuse I gave were true, and other times not, but if I did want to spend time with someone, but had a scheduling conflict, I’d offer an alternative plan. This method also worked well for me, because I went to a small university for undergrad, so there was a good chance that I’d run into one of the people I was trying to avoid later, around campus, at choir practice, the dining hall, the library, the gym, etc., so being civil but distant helped prevent any awkwardness and hurt feelings.

>>Later in life? That all depends on whether you are going to live your life worried about offending people.
People have got to stop worrying about who they are going to offend, and how that will happen. Live your life, and if someone is offended that is there problem.<<

Yeah, if someone is offended, then that's their problem, until I run out of friends because I've offended everyone. Warren, there's no way around it–being rude has social repercussions. Even if you don't like someone, they could be somehow connected with someone who you do like, you might work, volunteer, go to school, or participate in an extra-curricular activity with them, or any number of things. For example, I play in a steel band. It's open to people of all ages, all ability levels, and it's free, so naturally, we get all kinds. Not all of these individuals are people that I'd seek out as friends outside of steel band, so I just confine my interactions with them to steel band-related activities. I don't see any need to insult them because we don't see eye to eye on everything. Besides, even if I did, who's to say that I'm right and they're wrong? They might turn around and insult me right back, and nobody needs that. So, when we're at steel band together, we get along for the greater good of the band.

Emily nailed it. In life I have found that everyone is connected in some way. Facebook has proven that to me because I will see two people I know that I had no idea they knew each other and I will find out they do know each other. So pissing off a bunch of people is not going to do you or your kids any good. You will be the family no one wants their kids to play with or invite over.

People I did not like who I got into it with, end up having a kid in the same class as my kid so I have to see them every day and interact with them during class parties. If you work for a living you better damn well learn how to play nice with everyone whether you like them or not or you won’t have a job for long.

If you run a business you better learn how to please your customers even if you don’t like them. Or they will not give you business and go tell everyone they know not to do business with you either.

In reality, you can’t go around snubbing and pissing everyone off. It does not work out well. You have to learn how to go along to get along.

LMAO, really? Dolly give it up. I know people with gr. 7 educations that are far more intelligent than someone with a Masters. And vice versa.
Formal education is not a measuring stick for intellect. A degree is nothing more than a certificate for what you have been taught.
1. Person is so afaid of home invasion they won’t answer their door.
2. Person admits to getting life lessons on teens from movie plots.
3. Person thinks poptarts are an acceptable breakfast food everyday.
4. Person whines constantly about food allergy kids, wanting people to not do potlucks and so on.

These are just some of the examples that make you a whining moron.

Your BS in whatever is great. I only have gr. 13 and my technical training, hazardous material training, health and safety training, my DZ licesne, and my life’s experience.
I will put all that up against your BS anyday. And where I come from……..BS means something completely different.
YOU LOSE.

Ha just like I thought, no former education. I had a feeling that would be your answer. I also had a feeling you would fling more insults and try to somehow convince yourself that your high school education somehow measures up to someone who graduates College and High school with honors.

You failed to mention what your marks were in high school? Let me guess? Less than stellar?

Always free to leave, eh? That’s true, but I don’t WANT to leave the gym where I work, the YMCA where I volunteer off and on, the steel band I play in, the arts collective I belong to, or polite society in general. So, since I don’t want to leave, and since I know that going to those places and offending people willy-nilly would get me ASKED to leave, I think before I speak. It doesn’t mean that I stop being who I am–I’ve made a lot of life decisions that are different from the mainstream (I’m vegan and atheist, to start with), but it does mean that I have to be civil. That means that not every difference of opinion becomes a hill to die on in my world, and not everyone who disagrees with me is stupid, dumb, moronic, weak-willed, etc. It means that not everyone with more education or material wealth than I have is a snob, unless they act like one. I guess what I’m trying to say is, I’d rather be happy, and get along with the people I see on a regular basis, than be Always Right, and even when I am right, I don’t have to make sure EVERYONE knows it, because, besides not wanting to alienate myself from the world, there’s a good chance that someone else might be right the next time, and I might be wrong.

As for your reasons for believing that Dolly is stupid, well, a lot of (good) teen movies do teach life lessons (The Breakfast Club is about acceptance, for example), she feeds her son Pop-Tarts for breakfast because he’s autistic and he has some issues with food, but he’s slowly branching out, and as for fearing a home invasion, did it ever occur to you that she might have experienced one in the past? Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is real. In the city where I grew up (Barrie, Ontario), there was a tornado in the late spring/early summer of 1985 that devastated a large part of the city. I don’t remember this, because I was only one year old, although I’ve seen pictures, and been told about it. My parents, however, do remember, and ever since that incident, my mother has been afraid of tornadoes–even a strong thunderstorm makes her a bit antsy. I remember a lot of times in my childhood when we’d all have to go down to the basement because she was afraid that another tornado was coming, although none ever did–but, she’s gotten a lot better since then. Anyway, even if PTSD is a thing now, I’m not sure if it was in 1985, or else my mom would have gotten help, but my point is, would you make fun of her for being afraid of tornadoes? In that case, why is it okay to make fun of Dolly for being afraid of a home invasion?

Emily
If you cannot see the difference between living your life without worrying that it offends someone, and intentionally offending someone, you have a problem.

I am who I am, and if you do not like it or it offends you……..well I really do not care. You are free to take it up with me, not that I will change to not offend you, or you can just exercise your freedom and suck it up. Either way, I don’t give a damn about what other people think. What do you think about that?

>>Either way, I don’t give a damn about what other people think. What do you think about that?<<

I think that it's a fine line to walk, between living your life the way you see fit (which I definitely support), and having no self-regulation whatsoever, so that you offend people without meaning to.

Emily, Warren doesn’t offend people without meaning to. Warren fully intends to offend. He knows that he is being insulting and offensive to everyone on this blog. He doesn’t care.

Warren, I have never insulted you. I have said repeatedly that I don’t like you. As you said many times in this thread, it is perfectly acceptable to not like someone and even tell them that. I have, however, never called you stupid, moron, weak willed, bitch, bastard or any of the other things that you like to call anyone who disagrees with you. In fact, you are the one and only person who regularly comments on this blog who ever does any of those things.

Warren, no I don’t. I don’t happen to think that you are stupid, moronic, weak willed or any of the delightful things that you choose to call other people so I wouldn’t say so in either a veiled or direct way. If you have an inferiority complex and read those thoughts into other people’s words, don’t blame it on me.

I do think that you are one of the most unpleasant people that I have ever had the misfortune of coming in contact with and have said so very directly on a couple different occasions. Nothing has been veiled. I think everyone here fully understands that I don’t like you. Because of that, I couldn’t possibly care less what you think of me or my opinions or anything else. I do occasionally find it entertaining to watch you lose complete control over stupid crap and make yourself look like an idiot (note that I said LOOK LIKE an idiot and not that I think you actually are an idiot), but beyond that your presence here is completely inconsequential to me.

So we have established in this thread that it okay not to like someone and express that dislike as long as the person you don’t like isn’t Warren. Then you are a self righteous bitch for doing so. Got it. We should really make a list of Warren’s Rules on Life. It would be pretty entertaining. Of course, it would also change every 5 minutes since his only consistent rule is to pick someone you don’t like and then disagree nastily with everything they say, even if you totally agreed with it 10 minutes before.

ha for someone who is so secure in himself and doesn’t care if nobody likes him and doesn’t care if he offends someone, he sure tries to get defensive and argumentative. If you don’t care then why bother even arguing?

Poor Dolly, why? Because it is so much fun watching small feeble minds like yours twist in the wind.

You whine, complain, and make excuses for being a fearful lazy parent. And that is just pathetic.

Dolly,
I have never said you were against free range.

I have said you are lazy, fearful, and a stupid bitch that lives by excuses. But never said you were not free range.

You can say all you want. I have your posts to back up the laziness, the fearful and living by excuses. The stupid bitch is just my educated opinion of you.