Me Don't Have To

Laney has discovered a new phrase recently. She tells me defiantly when I ask her to do something, "Me don't have to" or she uses the excuse "My tummy hurts me." I'm trying right now to teach her that like it or not there are things in this world that you have to do. Especially when your mother tells you to.

This morning I heard on the radio about a mother who is failing miserably in teaching this to her daughter. Evidently the high school from which the young lady is about to graduate has asked for all the girls to wear dresses for the commencement exercises. Her mother is considering pursuing a lawsuit claiming that such a request is descriminatory. Horrors! For once in her young life this girl may have to do something she thinks is unpleasant.

In what way does a dress demean someone? In what way does it hurt anyone to dress up for certain things--like graduation, weddings, funerals? I could see her point if out of all the students graduating, this one was asked to put on a dress. I could see her point if the young men attending graduation were not asked (which is not likely) to wear dress shirts and most likely ties to graduation. Young men don't usually like wearing ties any more than some young ladies like to wear dresses.

But this young lady might have to do something she doesn't want to do for at the most 2 hours and her mother is planning to tie up our courts over it.

I wonder how the mother in question survived the toddler years with her daughter. Did she immediately give in to every demand and never ask her child to do anything? If so, she has raised a child that is grossly unprepared for what she will face in the coming days. How sad.

Even sadder is the fact that this young lady is not alone. There are hundreds of thousands of people in the coming generation that see absolutely nothing wrong with the idea of a lawsuit over this sort of thing.

Let me tell you the philosophy of parenting that my dad handed down to me from my grandfather--If a child wants to do something that is neither destructive or hurtful to themselves or others, it's probably okay to let them.

If a child never learns that there are some things he or she will have to do, no matter what their mood, if they never learn that there are authorities we must submit to in our lives, that is destructive to their character, hurtful to others around them (because it breeds selfishness) and ultimately hurtful to themselves because they will believe that the entire world is out to get them--over a little thing like whether or not to wear a dress.

How nice would it be if this young ladies mother, instead of claiming that it is discriminatory for the high school to ask her to wear a dress, would instead tell her daughter how nice she would look in a dress, or even take her shopping to help her find something flattering? All the while insisting that she live up to the requirements the school has set forth. Would it really be so hard to do? Are dresses really that symbolic? No it isn't hard. All you have do is enforce the rules.