By Rob Holbert Managing Editor

Man, how things have changed.

I was reading recently how it is now a law in Bayou La Batre that parents can be arrested and fined for their children’s school absences or misbehavior. That means if Little Johnny skips school, beats up the other kids or curses out his teachers, Mom and Dad could pay.

Can you imagine?

When I was in school as a kid, the concept of getting in trouble at school was terrifying enough. If I’d done something bad enough that my dad ended up being arrested for it, I’m sure I wouldn’t have made it to graduation, or I’d have been going to school in a body cast. But society’s touchy-feely way of dealing with kids has gotten so bad, this is what it’s come down to – that the Bayou La Batre City Council actually thinks it has done something good by teaching students other people should bear the responsibility of their actions.

Of course, I can still remember the days when teachers could paddle unruly students. Teachers these days are probably too scared of getting shot, stabbed or sued by the ACLU to get into that. Still, I can’t imagine anything sillier than trying to get tough on misbehaving kids by throwing their parents in jail. My guess is most of these kids need MORE time with mom and dad, not more time with them behind bars. But here’s what they’ve decided to do down in the Bayou.

A school principal can fill out a form requesting a parent’s arrest if their child chronically skips school or misbehaves. The parent will then be arrested, but can bond out for $500. The case then goes to municipal court, where the ‘rents can be slapped with community service or a fine.

Gee, it all sounds so easy, except for one minor detail – where’s the kid in this process? Probably at home playing with is Wii while pops is picking up cans on the side of the road. But there are folks who think this is actually a good thing.

Bayou La Batre Mayor Stan Wright was quoted in another publication saying, if a student “comes to school and continues to beat the other children up, curses the teacher, mistreats his fellow classmates, then we’re going to prosecute his parent or guardian. It’s got to stop. Our teachers and our principals are not going to be punching bags in this community.”

Alma Bryant High Principal was quoted saying, “The biggest value of this is that it is one thing a parent can use to implore their children.”

Talk about the inmates running the asylum. So now, the parent is supposed to “implore” little Johnny to “please go to school so Daddy doesn’t have to break big rocks into little ones.” Maybe Daddy should tell little Johnny how frightened he is that he’ll end up with a big, ugly prison boyfriend if Johnny doesn’t go to class. That would probably tug at little Johnny’s heart strings enough to get him to attend algebra, at least.

I don’t doubt bad kids are a real problem in the schools, but punishing person number two for person number one’s bad behavior isn’t very likely to teach person number one much of anything. I realize most of these problem kids probably don’t have very active parents around the ol’ homestead, but at what point do we teach people they’re responsible for their own actions? When they’re 30?

It makes so much more sense to me to have the rotten kids out on the side of the road picking up garbage than the parents, but I’m sure that violates some touchy-feely approach to child discipline. Probably the very approach that’s gotten us to the point where we’re looking to punish anyone but the child.

Maybe the Bayou La Batre City Council should just devise a points system that will deal with juvenile misbehavior both inside and outside of school. After all, if these kids are skipping class, they’re probably running amok in the streets of Bayou La Batre and somebody’s parents should have to pay for their misdeeds.

For instance, breaking windows, egging cars or mooning crossing guards could earn Mom or Dad a few hours of picking up trash. Petty theft and sneaking into movies without paying would mean the parents would spend a weekend in the city jail cooking for the other inmates. Breaking and entering and dope dealing, well that might cost Dad his pinkie. Imagine how bad the kid would feel when he saw Dad wandering around without a pinkie. I bet he’d straighten up and fly right.

Frankly, I don’t know why we don’t just push this process to the next logical conclusion and apply it to older criminals. Since recidivism is such a problem, the parents of hardened criminals must have done a poor job. They, too, should pay. Plus it would be so much easier to nab the slow, elderly parents of criminals than the quick, crafty criminals themselves.

Can’t you just imagine how torn up the perpetrator of a triple homicide would be as he watched his 70-year-old father get strapped into “Yellow Mama” and juiced. (I know we don’t use “Yellow Mama” anymore, but I miss her.)

But as appealing as it might be to lock up innocent people for others’ behavior, the bottom like is it’s completely illogical and more than a bit dumb. If the Bayou La Batre City Council really wanted to do something about misbehaving students, the adage about sparing the rod and spoiling the child comes to mind.

Rob Holbert is Lagniappe managing editor. Contact him at rholbert@lagniappemobile.com.

Archives