Today's Todos (Tada!)

I know: this is boring for anyone not doing it. But I'm finding it motivates me to get this stuff done, which is a good thing.

* Annual check up (first time in three years)
* Start revisions on Part III
* The Living Room (dusting, putting stuff away, oiling the dining table, which is parched*)
* Drag la Chienne
* Bring up stuff to be filed from basement and organize it for, like, actual filing
* An hour on the Wii Fit

That oughta keep me busy.

* inspired/reminded to do this by danjite and his refinishing project.

ETA: Between turning my ankle on the way home from the doctor's, and the fact that it took a longer-than-usual time for the stick from my blood test to stop oozing, I decided to bag the Wii Fit for today. And I decided that I wasn't going to do the basement filing because it was above and beyond, and anyway, Idonwanna. Plus, a new freelance project just dropped into my lap, starting tomorrow, so I figure maybe I'll do the vacuuming tonight. Or maybe not. Starting tomorrow, it's three hours of writing, first thing in the a.m., then on to the freelance gig, walk the dog in there somewhere, and then a proofing gig on top of it all. Money money money! Hurrah!

Being a Parent Means

...sometimes you're uncomfortable.

Today's New York Times has a long long piece about cyber-bullying, schools, and the uneasy boundaries between what a school can do about problematic relationships that take place in cyberspace and not on campus. It's long, it's sobering, it (of course) views with alarm (because it's the Times and it's technology and we're all going to die). The lead example is of a girl whose parents presented the principal of her middle school with a series of increasingly vile, threatening and sexual texts their daughter had received, apparently from a boy at the school. Sixth graders. I'll come back to the parents in a sec; for various reasons the principal finally got involved (despite his first feelings that he couldn't because--not done at school, no power, etc.). As almost always happens--I say this as the parent of a teen--there was more to it than initially meets the eye. The girl had deleted all her replies to the messages before she gave the phone to her parents, which suggests that she was not the pure victim. The boy insisted he'd lost his phone and someone else must have sent the messages. A right old mess. In the end, the principal concluded that the boy hadn't sent the messages--some internal clues, references, suggested another sixth grader, but without stronger proof no one could do anything much.

Okay. But: the parents. I said I'd come back to the parents.

“I said, ‘This occurred out of school, on a weekend,’ ” recalled the principal.... “We can’t discipline him.”

Had they contacted the boy’s family, he asked.

Too awkward, they replied. The fathers coach sports together.

What about the police, Mr. Orsini asked.

A criminal investigation would be protracted, the parents had decided, its outcome uncertain. They wanted immediate action.

They pleaded: “Help us.”

With all respect...too awkward? Okay, and if the boy had sexually assaulted their daughter, would that be too awkward? Either you're taking care of your kid or you're not. I believe they were genuinely upset, and genuinely fearful...but also suspected that their daughter was not the victim of drive-by nastiness but a part of an escalating exchange. Doesn't make what the sender of the emails did in the least acceptable, but...there's something about calling up the school and asking them to solve the problem for you that sits in the worst possible way with me. At the least, you work with the principal, you don't drop it into his lap and run for the hills. The handing off of parental responsibility to schools is part of the ongoing education crisis in this country: I've seen teachers trying to do so many non-education-related things that it's a miracle, and a testament to their passion for their work and their charges, that the kids get taught anything.

Awkward. Really.