DADWAGON

Presented without comment, via Gawker:

Ah, youth and drug dealing—how amusing! I found this one via our junior employee at Gawker, Maureen O’Connor (she’s due for a raise, eh, Nathan?). Seems a couple of middle-school boys in Virginia were suspended because they brought Italian spices to school in a plastic baggie and tried to pass it off as pot. They didn’t sell it, mind you, they just showed it off to their friends. The school administrators found out, suspended the kids, and now—shocking!—the parents are considering their legal options. Here’s the details from a local paper:

The school called it an “imitation controlled substance,” which is prohibited under division policy. Even though Adam … was just passing it from one student to another, he was suspended for 10 days and recommended for expulsion, Grass said.

“I know times have changed, and you can’t do (just) anything in schools anymore,” Grass said.

“But I think there needs to be a certain amount of common sense applied to their policies.”

The Grass family went online to look for help and found the Charlottesville-based Rutherford Institute, which provides free legal services to people whose constitutional and human rights have been threatened or violated. The institute sent a letter to the school’s principal Friday, calling Grass’ suspension “a travesty of justice.”

Grass, I should point out, is the family name of one of the suspended lads, which is totally ironic when you think about it! Why not just call him a dope? Which he kinda is for bringing oregano to school and telling everyone it’s, well, dope! Or just call him stupid. Or just suspend him and don’t sue the school, because this isn’t a travesty of justice but almost exactly the sort of thing schools should suspend children for.

When I pick up my toddler, Sasha, from day care, there are certain rituals I go through. A brief chat with the teachers, pleasantries exchanged with other parents, and then, just before we go out the door, I require Sasha to say good-bye to everyone. This can be as little as a wave and a “Bye-bye!” or as much as a hug and kiss and a “See you tomorrow!” Usually, Sasha does this enthusiastically.

There’s one little complication, though: She has trouble making eye contact with her teachers and friends as she says good-bye, and we usually have to hold her head facing these people.

This is so, so, so, so minor, but it makes me nervous because, you know, Google, which brings up all kinds of pages discussing autism and sensory processing disorders and things that tend to freak me out, even though, by any other measure, Sasha is definitely not on the autism spectrum. It does, however, remind me of my own problems with eye contact, which are probably noticed by no one except me. Basically, I find it hard to make eye contact and either try to talk across to someone, or stand far back enough that my lack of direct eye contact isn’t noticeable. If pressed, I’ll do what I can, but it never feels right or comfortable to look into someone’s eyes, and my vision usually drifts to their mouth instead. Or their boobs, if they’ve got them.

(Am I the only one with this problem? Let’s not ask Google.)

Anyway, this is really me just worrying about nothing at all. One of those Google hits was this, in which Patricia Henderson Shimm, author of Parenting Your Toddler: The Expert’s Guide To The Tough And Tender Years, reassures overly concerned people like me that this is normal:

Before the age of 3, most toddlers don’t yet grasp the importance of looking people in the eye when speaking to them. In fact, looking down or away is how they attempt to take control of a situation. When you’re explaining to your child that he shouldn’t jump on the bed, for example, he may look at a wall to avoid becoming overwhelmed with feelings of guilt. Or if it’s his birthday and he’s receiving presents, your child may not be able to look at Grandpa because he’s too excited. One way to draw your child out is to use a puppet to talk to him. Get his attention by placing the puppet within his line of vision. Use it to help him focus on you, then drop the puppet and catch his gaze.

Which is great! Unfortunately, she says nothing about 36-year-olds.

My post yesterday on a Manhattan mother who sued her four-year old’s preschool for ruining her academic future, had little, if anything to do with the deep racial divisions in this country. Or did it?

Nathan put a link to the article on Facebook and received a few responses from his friends. Now, I don’t know how well he knows these folks, so I don’t mean to be rude, but the thread of responses had almost nothing to do with my post, and a whole lot to do with the lawsuit where a woman sued McDonald’s for spilling her coffee in a drive-thru. This evolved into a discussion over the merits of her suit, the ways it was used as a rallying cry for tort reform, and then this, which even at 8:30am I think is going to easily qualify as Comment of the day:

I think the US is way too lawyer-crazy, and one of the things I find most refreshing about Mexico is the freedom – especially in building places – that its ethic of tragic sensibility and self-responsibility affords. However I think the coffee plaintiff had a beef: when you buy a cup of coffee – at a drive through – it’s reasonable to assume you can prop it in your crotch and if you spill it you won’t get third-degree burns through your pants. The toddler-mom case however reveals severe class privileged honkyism.

Moral of the story: don’t drop the coffee.