Saturday, April 29, 2006

And we all live in a fascist state

I'm wondering when my daughter's school became a fascist state. As with most public settings the rules of society seem to preach only one thing...conform, conform, conform. I know some rules they have are in place because of "gang" activity. (Personally I laugh at the thought of these stupid suburban kids playing gang members in jr high. If you're that bored find a hobby. Most of them would probably piss their pants if they ever had contact with a real gang member.)

Anyway, as she was leaving school yesterday, the assistant principle told her that if she comes back to school Monday with her hair the color it was she would be suspended. What the fuck? I know they have a rule that hair can't be an "unnatural" color, but her hair was simply a bright reddish copper. I've seen people who have that as their natural color. Now it did really stand out on the kiddie because of her dark eyebrows, but fuck, it wasn't purple or blue or something.

We had an appointment after school at the salon again cuz she was going to get black streaks put in to go along with the red. Her father called the school to try and resolve the issue. The kiddie was devastated. There's only one month left of school so we were left with a dilemma. Does she do what we all feel is right and get her hair done how she wants it, or do we back down so she doesn't get suspended and jeopardize her graduation and placement in the gifted academy? We told her we'd support her 100% with whatever she chose to do.

The asst. principle said that he personally didn't have a problem with it, but that the rules come from the school board and he has to enforce them. The school board must be a bunch of fucking morons to be worrying about someone's hair color. Shouldn't their attention be focused on more important issues like the pregnant 7th grader and the daily fist fights where someone gets their face bashed in?

In the end the kiddie ended up cowtowing to the rules and had her hair colored a darker red and had her eyebrows lightened so they wouldn't notice she didn't make that much of a drastic change. Plus it's a semi-permanent color so it'll gradually just wash out.

She learned a valuable lesson about the unfairness of life and the struggles she's going to continue to face as she asserts her own personality and style. Because it doesn't conform to the masses, she will continue to feel the heat.

But that's all water under the bridge for now. Tomorrow we're off to Milwaukee to see Alkaline Trio, so she won't even be in school Monday. We're just going to enjoy ourselves and the rest of the world can fuck off.

4 Comments:

Blogger Unknown said...

You're such a cool mom! I'd have loved to have had a mom as cool as you when I was a teenager!

10:19 PM, April 29, 2006  
Blogger annabkrr said...

I'm with Cinthia on the cool mom comment! Yea, for cool momma's!

Down here, schools monitor the length of male students hair and they will measure the shorts and skirts girls wear. It's Nazi Germany here too!

10:56 AM, April 30, 2006  
Blogger Handsome B. Wonderful said...

This reminds of what's going on here with our schools. They are getting rid of the arts programs.

So much for diversity.

It's all about conformity as you say.

You rock for backing up your kiddo like that.

12:33 PM, April 30, 2006  
Blogger Polar Bear said...

Yeah, conformity goes too far sometimes. When I was in school, you couldn't even wear ribbons in your hair which were not black or brown.

2:47 PM, April 30, 2006  

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