May 16, 2012 7:01 AM

You know you should have passed on parenthood when this seems like a good idea

Two parent chaperones at a Colorado high school prom sprayed Lysol on students engaged in “dirty dancing” and called several teenage girls “sluts and whores” for making it appear “they were advertising butt sex,” according to cops. he bizarre incident last month at the Manitou Springs High School resulted in harassment charges being filed against Jennifer Farmer and Hannah Rockey, both 42-year-old mothers who allegedly dispersed the disinfectant in a bid to pry apart underage revelers…. [T]he chaperones—who were dressed in combat boots, military fatigues, and military undershirt—noted that “some of the kids were becoming disruptive and were being explicit while dancing.”

Conflict between generations has been around as long as there have been parents and children. It’s a natural part of the human equation, I suppose; my father and I used to have knock-down, drag-out fights over haircuts. He insisted that I get a crewcut, and I wanted to grow my hair down to my shoulders. Many was the time I’d lock myself in my room…only to remember that eventually I’d need to eat and/or use the bathroom. So much for my deeply principled protests….

I’m no fan of “dirty dancing,” but sometimes you just have to allow kids to be kids. As adults, you or I might not engage in something so crass, but most kids live to piss off adults. It’s as true today as it was during my schoolboy days. ‘Course, I don’t recall parents showing up in fatigues and wielding cans of Lysol.

The two mothers in question (who, I would argue, have little business even being parents) really need to take a step back and take a good long look at their own intolerance. It’s one thing to raise their own children to be intolerant and inflexible, but I can’t help but wonder what they think gives them the right to impose their views on the children of others? More to the point, what gives them the right to spray the children of others with Lysol in an effort to impose their self-righteous, intolerant “morality?”

Perhaps the two mothers could benefit by honestly examining their own motives and prejudices; why are they so frightened of something they clearly don’t understand? Again, it’s not something you or I might engage in, but in the end who’s being harmed by “dirty dancing”…or any other form of teenage expression? Remember, it wasn’t all that long ago that we were doing much the same things to our own parents.

Lighten up…and the next time you decide to referee a high-school dance, how about leaving the fatigues and the Lysol at home? You can thank me later.

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This page contains a single entry by Jack Cluth published on May 16, 2012 7:01 AM.

Today's parenting fail was the previous entry in this blog.

The National Carolina Visitor Bureau's latest marketing campaign...sort of is the next entry in this blog.

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