![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
I think I shall call it Mini-Rant
Nov. 22nd, 2002 02:21 pmOK, first the context, since I originally posted this on another forum:
A friend mentioned that the parents of a kid who was particularly allergic to peanuts got the administrators of their child's school to ban all peanut products from being brought to school. Unless I misunderstood, that included kids bringing things with peanuts included in them. So here's what I wrote in reply:
Pardon my French, but that's one of the stupidest goddamn things I've ever heard of. That's like saying because your child got burned by a stove that stoves need to be banned. Whiskey, Tango, Foxtrot, over?
People need to learn that there's a dividing line between protecting your children from hazards, and forcing those who don't have your child's vulnerabilities to give up that which causes them no harm. You don't want you child eating peanuts? Fine, make sure they understand that it will hurt them. But all you do by getting the powers that be to outlaw peanuts from the school is plant the mark of Cain on the child's forehead.
The other kids in school are not, as a general rule, going to think of this along the lines of "They're keeping that kid from dying," but rather are far more likely to think "It's that damn kid's fault that we can't get anything with peanuts in it." Way to go, parents.
The older I get, the more convinced I am that Twain and Mencken were optimists about the human species.
A friend mentioned that the parents of a kid who was particularly allergic to peanuts got the administrators of their child's school to ban all peanut products from being brought to school. Unless I misunderstood, that included kids bringing things with peanuts included in them. So here's what I wrote in reply:
Pardon my French, but that's one of the stupidest goddamn things I've ever heard of. That's like saying because your child got burned by a stove that stoves need to be banned. Whiskey, Tango, Foxtrot, over?
People need to learn that there's a dividing line between protecting your children from hazards, and forcing those who don't have your child's vulnerabilities to give up that which causes them no harm. You don't want you child eating peanuts? Fine, make sure they understand that it will hurt them. But all you do by getting the powers that be to outlaw peanuts from the school is plant the mark of Cain on the child's forehead.
The other kids in school are not, as a general rule, going to think of this along the lines of "They're keeping that kid from dying," but rather are far more likely to think "It's that damn kid's fault that we can't get anything with peanuts in it." Way to go, parents.
The older I get, the more convinced I am that Twain and Mencken were optimists about the human species.
