The Editorial Essay
They turned out a little different from each other =|
The full 4-page one is about expecting other people to parent for you and not sheltering your kids, but the newspaper submission is about the Santa debacle. They're related but it's TANGENTIAL at best. That is, the thesis statement is not the same for the two editorials, but they have common threads.
I have proofread the Letter to the Editorial, but the full essay is a rough draft, I haven't even read it over yet.
It's just the rough draft that's due tomorrow, though, so that's A-OK!
Children are important. Children are our future. They’re the ones who will be running the world when we’re our grandparents’ age, so if we want to see a good retirement, we need to take good care of our children and make sure they grow up right.
But whose job is it to say what’s “right” for kids? The immediate response should be that their parents, obviously, are the ones who should be deciding. It’s a parent’s job to raise their children. That’s common sense. If you go to the mall and see children running around by themselves, your first thought is, “Where are their parents?” Their parents should be watching them and making sure they don’t hurt themselves. It’s their job to protect their children and decide what they should and shouldn’t be doing.
So what’s with the trend of people lately who expect the rest of the world to raise kids instead of the parents? You know what I’m talking about. The people who keep pressing for changes “because of the children.” But how many of them have children themselves, and how many of them know what children need?
For example, a few years back, some elementary schools were banning peanut butter schoolwide because of one or two children in the school who were allergic. Activists rallied and said that peanut butter allergy is a disability and must therefore be accommodated according to the law. So, kids couldn’t bring peanut butter sandwiches to school in their lunches. It didn’t matter if they had absolutely no contact with the child who actually had the allergy, they weren’t allowed to have their peanut butter just because somebody else was allergic to it.
It’s ridiculous. Children are smarter than the world gives them credit for. If these peanut butter allergic children were instead educated on their condition and trained on how to handle it, there would be no need for this “my child’s life or your kid’s lunch” debate. Your allergic child should know how to handle themselves around other people’s lunches. If they’re planning on eating somebody else’s lunch, they should know to ask if there are peanuts in it, or better yet, just eat their own lunches. The school should be informed of their allergy and keep supplies on hand in case of emergency.
I’m not opposed to the school taking precautionary measures, such as clearly marking all foods with traces of peanuts in them or making sure that it never gets served in the cafeteria, but expecting other students to give up peanut butter just because of one or two children at the school who are allergic? No. You can’t ask those other kids’ parents to force their kids to give that up just because of your child’s condition. You can’t expect those other kids’ parents to look out for your kid. You need to be looking out for your kid.
What does it do for children when anything dangerous to them is removed from their lives? When they live in a bubble? Well I’ll tell you what doesn’t happen. They don’t learn how to handle it themselves. It’s sort of like this: when you get colds a lot, you learn how to deal with the cold symptoms, and you build up a tolerance to dealing with them and learn the best ways to alleviate them. When you get colds infrequently, whenever one does hit you don’t know how to take care of it and you’re stuck more miserable than the people who are used to it because you don’t have the tolerance built up to handle the symptoms better. Likewise, if you keep these peanut allergic children under a sheltering bubble of not allowing any children to bring peanut butter to school, they grow up thinking that everything around them will be safe because they never learn how to look out for it themselves. They aren’t familiar with having to ask whether certain foods contain peanuts, maybe they don’t realize they should. When they were kids they were never exposed to it, their parents took care of everything.
It’s not just peanut butter. Sesame street’s been a victim on the “role model” front, too. Do you recall your childhood’s Cookie Monster? C is for cookie, but apparently that wasn’t good enough for some people. They decided that his cookie eating was a bad example for children, and childhood obesity was at an all-time high, so they made Cookie Monster cut back on the cookies.
But who is responsible if children end up overweight? Ultimately, it’s their parents who feed them. Parents are the ones who buy the food and cook the dinner. Even if you don’t pack your child’s lunch, you do have the power to control what they eat at home. It shouldn’t be Sesame Street’s job to teach your child about eating snack foods in moderation, it should be your job, as their parent, to educate them.
Likewise, an activist group has recently begun a campaign to slim down the internationally recognized figure of Santa Claus. This is even more ridiculous than the Cookie Monster debacle, because at least Sesame Street has a place as an educational children’s program. Santa Claus is not and has never been a role model. You might try to say he is a role model for giving instead of getting, but you’d be wrong, because children think of Santa as somebody to get presents from, not somebody to take example from. He’s a behaviour enforcement (naughty children don’t get presents), but nobody aspires to be Santa Claus when they grow up, nobody aspires to look like him, no child stares up at Christmas posters and says, “I’m gonna be that guy.” It’s not like being an astronaut.
So why does Santa need to slim down? Of course, it’s because childhood obesity is a huge problem. But what will that do? I don’t think it will do anything for children except make them expect a skinny man to come down their chimney instead of a fat man. But still, people insist. They insist because this childhood obesity problem must be everyone’s fault except the parents who aren’t watching what their children eat.
People keep sheltering and sheltering and expecting other people to shelter for them, but it’s not our job to keep your kids sheltered. The world is not a nice, happy place where everyone caves in to your demands. We’re not going to make Santa thin just because you can’t be bothered to feed your child right. We don’t want to kick peanut butter out of our schools because you don’t want your child to be at risk.
If, instead of all this activism going around, parents would just do their job, be parents, and teach their children how to take care of themselves, we wouldn’t have to worry about other people’s kids. We wouldn’t have to worry about having a future of leaders who expect everyone to change for them instead of knowing how to adapt to everyone else.
And the Editorial:
Ask any American child what Santa Claus looks like and they’ll all tell you the same thing: a fat man in a red coat with a long white beard. The surgeon general disagrees and is advocating a new, slimmer Santa. Why? Because he’s a role model, and Santa’s current weight sets a bad example.
Do you think of Santa as a role model? I don’t. He climbs down a chimney and hands out presents. Santa Claus isn’t like NFL stars or pop singers who have to worry about their public image because children will emulate them. Children don’t look up at Christmas posters and say, “Yeah, that guy. I’m gonna be just like that guy when I grow up.”
If childhood obesity is such a huge problem in this country, what would making Santa thin really do about it? It’s still their parents who are feeding them too much or not feeding them right. It’s ultimately the parents who are responsible for their children’s weight problems.
It’s not Santa’s fault. Let the old man have his milk and cookies. He’s not the one who’s supposed to be telling your kids what to eat. You are.
The full 4-page one is about expecting other people to parent for you and not sheltering your kids, but the newspaper submission is about the Santa debacle. They're related but it's TANGENTIAL at best. That is, the thesis statement is not the same for the two editorials, but they have common threads.
I have proofread the Letter to the Editorial, but the full essay is a rough draft, I haven't even read it over yet.
It's just the rough draft that's due tomorrow, though, so that's A-OK!
Children are important. Children are our future. They’re the ones who will be running the world when we’re our grandparents’ age, so if we want to see a good retirement, we need to take good care of our children and make sure they grow up right.
But whose job is it to say what’s “right” for kids? The immediate response should be that their parents, obviously, are the ones who should be deciding. It’s a parent’s job to raise their children. That’s common sense. If you go to the mall and see children running around by themselves, your first thought is, “Where are their parents?” Their parents should be watching them and making sure they don’t hurt themselves. It’s their job to protect their children and decide what they should and shouldn’t be doing.
So what’s with the trend of people lately who expect the rest of the world to raise kids instead of the parents? You know what I’m talking about. The people who keep pressing for changes “because of the children.” But how many of them have children themselves, and how many of them know what children need?
For example, a few years back, some elementary schools were banning peanut butter schoolwide because of one or two children in the school who were allergic. Activists rallied and said that peanut butter allergy is a disability and must therefore be accommodated according to the law. So, kids couldn’t bring peanut butter sandwiches to school in their lunches. It didn’t matter if they had absolutely no contact with the child who actually had the allergy, they weren’t allowed to have their peanut butter just because somebody else was allergic to it.
It’s ridiculous. Children are smarter than the world gives them credit for. If these peanut butter allergic children were instead educated on their condition and trained on how to handle it, there would be no need for this “my child’s life or your kid’s lunch” debate. Your allergic child should know how to handle themselves around other people’s lunches. If they’re planning on eating somebody else’s lunch, they should know to ask if there are peanuts in it, or better yet, just eat their own lunches. The school should be informed of their allergy and keep supplies on hand in case of emergency.
I’m not opposed to the school taking precautionary measures, such as clearly marking all foods with traces of peanuts in them or making sure that it never gets served in the cafeteria, but expecting other students to give up peanut butter just because of one or two children at the school who are allergic? No. You can’t ask those other kids’ parents to force their kids to give that up just because of your child’s condition. You can’t expect those other kids’ parents to look out for your kid. You need to be looking out for your kid.
What does it do for children when anything dangerous to them is removed from their lives? When they live in a bubble? Well I’ll tell you what doesn’t happen. They don’t learn how to handle it themselves. It’s sort of like this: when you get colds a lot, you learn how to deal with the cold symptoms, and you build up a tolerance to dealing with them and learn the best ways to alleviate them. When you get colds infrequently, whenever one does hit you don’t know how to take care of it and you’re stuck more miserable than the people who are used to it because you don’t have the tolerance built up to handle the symptoms better. Likewise, if you keep these peanut allergic children under a sheltering bubble of not allowing any children to bring peanut butter to school, they grow up thinking that everything around them will be safe because they never learn how to look out for it themselves. They aren’t familiar with having to ask whether certain foods contain peanuts, maybe they don’t realize they should. When they were kids they were never exposed to it, their parents took care of everything.
It’s not just peanut butter. Sesame street’s been a victim on the “role model” front, too. Do you recall your childhood’s Cookie Monster? C is for cookie, but apparently that wasn’t good enough for some people. They decided that his cookie eating was a bad example for children, and childhood obesity was at an all-time high, so they made Cookie Monster cut back on the cookies.
But who is responsible if children end up overweight? Ultimately, it’s their parents who feed them. Parents are the ones who buy the food and cook the dinner. Even if you don’t pack your child’s lunch, you do have the power to control what they eat at home. It shouldn’t be Sesame Street’s job to teach your child about eating snack foods in moderation, it should be your job, as their parent, to educate them.
Likewise, an activist group has recently begun a campaign to slim down the internationally recognized figure of Santa Claus. This is even more ridiculous than the Cookie Monster debacle, because at least Sesame Street has a place as an educational children’s program. Santa Claus is not and has never been a role model. You might try to say he is a role model for giving instead of getting, but you’d be wrong, because children think of Santa as somebody to get presents from, not somebody to take example from. He’s a behaviour enforcement (naughty children don’t get presents), but nobody aspires to be Santa Claus when they grow up, nobody aspires to look like him, no child stares up at Christmas posters and says, “I’m gonna be that guy.” It’s not like being an astronaut.
So why does Santa need to slim down? Of course, it’s because childhood obesity is a huge problem. But what will that do? I don’t think it will do anything for children except make them expect a skinny man to come down their chimney instead of a fat man. But still, people insist. They insist because this childhood obesity problem must be everyone’s fault except the parents who aren’t watching what their children eat.
People keep sheltering and sheltering and expecting other people to shelter for them, but it’s not our job to keep your kids sheltered. The world is not a nice, happy place where everyone caves in to your demands. We’re not going to make Santa thin just because you can’t be bothered to feed your child right. We don’t want to kick peanut butter out of our schools because you don’t want your child to be at risk.
If, instead of all this activism going around, parents would just do their job, be parents, and teach their children how to take care of themselves, we wouldn’t have to worry about other people’s kids. We wouldn’t have to worry about having a future of leaders who expect everyone to change for them instead of knowing how to adapt to everyone else.
And the Editorial:
Ask any American child what Santa Claus looks like and they’ll all tell you the same thing: a fat man in a red coat with a long white beard. The surgeon general disagrees and is advocating a new, slimmer Santa. Why? Because he’s a role model, and Santa’s current weight sets a bad example.
Do you think of Santa as a role model? I don’t. He climbs down a chimney and hands out presents. Santa Claus isn’t like NFL stars or pop singers who have to worry about their public image because children will emulate them. Children don’t look up at Christmas posters and say, “Yeah, that guy. I’m gonna be just like that guy when I grow up.”
If childhood obesity is such a huge problem in this country, what would making Santa thin really do about it? It’s still their parents who are feeding them too much or not feeding them right. It’s ultimately the parents who are responsible for their children’s weight problems.
It’s not Santa’s fault. Let the old man have his milk and cookies. He’s not the one who’s supposed to be telling your kids what to eat. You are.