Tag: busybodies

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Gee, What a Treat

It doesn’t take long for a kid to spot the dangerous houses on Halloween. Like the ones who give out raisins. Or pennies. Or candy that exists only to fill out a bargain bin. (Bit O’Honey, I’m looking at you.)

But notes home? That’s got to be a new low.

You’ve probably heard the story by now. For the 17 people who missed it, we take you now to North Dakota, where a radio caller said she planned to give notes to some trick-or-treaters that read “My, your parents raised a fat one, didn’t they?”

OK, it’s not quite that crass. But close. According to valleynewslive.com in Fargo, the letter home to Mom and Dad begins “(Your) child is, in my opinion, moderately obese and should not be consuming sugar treats to the extent of some children this Halloween season.”

Brings a tear to your eye, doesn’t it? And they say neighbors don’t care anymore.

Let me call a time-out for one second. Yes, a lot of kids are becoming overweight in this country. Yes, even those without weight issues tend to inhale enough Halloween candy to light up three seasons of an anime series.

But even assuming that the woman had the best of intentions and an unerring eye for the children whose weight gain was due solely to eating habits, is there anyone out there who thinks this would actually work? Or would we get to watch a Halloween movie where Mom shapeshifts into a man-eating Bengal tiger?

I vote for tiger.

I speak from experience.

Oh, not on the trick-or-treat note circuit. Rather, from my college days working in a bookstore, the late, great City News, home of the greatest popcorn in Longmont. Like many a bookstore, we drew a lot of kids. Pretty good kids at that. But sometimes a little too … energetic, let’s say.

One boy in particular had decided to amuse himself by turning the bookstore into his personal Indy 500, doing laps at a pretty good rate of speed. It was cute, but a little dangerous; even if he didn’t run into a customer, much of the floor was hardwood and would hurt like the dickens if he wiped out.

So I came over as he made his next pass and  said with a smile, “Hey, slow down a little, tiger.”

That’s when I met Mom.

And met Mom.

And met Mom some more.

The words escape me now. The tone never will. Especially the anger that someone had trespassed on her prerogative as a parent by telling her son what to do.

I still don’t regret saying what I said to him. But I’ll never forget the lesson on how quickly confrontation can blow up, even from mild beginnings, when the subject is a child.

“Fat notes,” however well-meant, are unlikely to do more than begin a fight.

I’m not saying neighbors can’t be concerned or parents can’t be neglectful. But picking battles is always a wise idea. This particular one is for the parents, the doctor, maybe the child’s teachers. People who see the boy or girl more than just once a year in a bizarre costume. People with some idea of the child’s life and health, and what their real needs are.

People whose commitment goes beyond an envelope in a trick-or-treat bag.

I hope, after Halloween, that this worried neighbor turns her eagle eye to more than just weight. That she can keep an eye out for kids who seem to be bullied, or abused, or who just need even one friend. Those are the ones who can use a neighbor who’s unafraid of confrontation, who’s willing to stick her neck out to help one child who needs it.

They’re also the situations that require more than a short letter home, of course. They require a real investment of time and energy and love. That’s risky. And it’s not guaranteed to succeed. But it’s a battle worth fighting.

And it can always use one more person.

I hope she takes note.

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For Your Own Good

There’s a lot for a preschooler to learn – shapes, colors, how to play nicely with other kids.

Now, it seems, they also have to learn how to please the Lunch Inspectors.

I take you now to beautiful Raeford, N.C., home of West Hoke Elementary School. It’s at that school where a young girl arrived with a seemingly innocuous lunch from home: turkey and cheese sandwich, banana, potato chips and apple juice.

Not bad. Sounds pretty good, actually.

But not good enough to satisfy the Lunch Inspectors. A USDA worker at the school said the lunch lacked the full two servings of fruit and vegetables and that she’d have to have a school lunch instead – at Mom’s expense.

And at Mom’s outrage.

“I pack her lunchbox according to what she eats,” the girl’s mother told the Carolina Journal. “It always consists of a fruit. It never consists of a vegetable. She eats vegetables at home because I have to watch her because she doesn’t really care for vegetables.”

As a side note, the girl ate exactly three chicken nuggets from that school lunch.

Lot of vegetables consumed there, huh?

Now, I do understand that not every home situation is a good one. There are parents out there who’ll send their kids to school with two saltines and a can of pop – or who can’t send the kids out with anything at all. Situations like that need to be noticed and even helped, if they can.

But this was hardly abusive or neglectful. This was someone coloring outside the lines. No, I take that back – this was someone coloring with an unapproved crayon.

A higher-level state worker later said the lunch should have been passed. But to me, that misses the point. Passing the lunch, short of an obvious problem, shouldn’t have even been an issue. All it did was offend the parent and embarrass the school, without even solving the supposed problem.

But then, I really shouldn’t be surprised. There’s a lot of people today who seem to know what’s best for us. Everyone except us, apparently.

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive,” C.S. Lewis once wrote. “It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”

I’m not saying it’s wrong to care. I’m not saying that no one can ever be corrected, or that a helping hand can’t ever be extended. But anything, taken to extremes, can cross the line. Just as too much insistence on self-reliance can become an excuse for neglect, too much insistence on “let me help you” can become a burden.

It doesn’t even need to be the state doing it. We’ve all seen the “helicopter parents,” hovering close lest their child’s foot hit a stone. A recent NPR story found that now many of those parents are now invading the workplace, calling employers to push for their children. One Michigan State study of 700 employers found that a third had received resumes by a parent and that four percent had even seen parents show up at the job interview.

But why not? It’s for their own good, right?

Maybe, just maybe, our society needs a cooling-off period. A chance to remember those preschool lessons about keeping your hands to yourself and doing your own work. A chance to land all the helicopters, official and unofficial, and just let kids have a normal school day.

Don’t act like a turkey.

Save it for the sandwiches.