I was watching the news today at work. Technically I was setting up a video conference room and had the TV on to ‘test signal’. I think it was ABC was showing a 12 or 13 year old kid getting arrested for trespassing at the hospice in an attempt to give Mrs. Shiavo a water. The kids dad was in the crowd telling a reporter that his son just loved Terry so much and he wanted to give her water. Fine, but what kind of dad lets their young kid get arrested. I don’t that the kid could articulate an opinion that was different from his fathers (not a insult but I think the kid is too young to truly understand the issue completely).
So, would you as a father let your 12 year old kid get arrested while giving commentary? How about getting arrested with them to prove a point?
Anyone who took their child to The Freak Show should have their children taken away and then be sent to an island so that can stop abusing their children. I gotta an idea. Why doesn’t The Freak Show all starve to death to show they really do care about Terri?
Not a parent, but I can’t imagine the mindset that would allow a parent to use their child to make a political stand by putting them into a position to go to jail while I stand behind the barrier commenting to reporters.
Add this guy to the list of whackos that are doing nothing to help the Schindlers’ cause.
You know who’s really bugging me these days? These pro-lifers . . .
You ever look at their faces? . . . “I’m pro-life!” “I’m pro-life!” Boy, they look it, don’t they? They just exude joie de vivre. You just want to hang with them and play Trivial Pursuit all night long.
You know what bugs me about them? If you’re so pro-life, do me a favor—don’t lock arms and block medical clinics. If you’re so pro-life, lock arms and block cemeteries. . . . I want to see pro-lifers at funerals opening caskets—”Get the fuck out of there, there’ll be no death on this planet, d’ya hear?” Then I’d really be impressed by their mission.
While I sincerely believe that Mrs. Shiavo should be alloweed to die in peace (assuming that’s what she wanted, I’ve been willfully ignoring the issue), as a father I wouldn’t have any major problem with the general notion of my child taking ethical action in support of an informed political position. I’ve taken my six- and two-year olds to anti-war rallies, where they’ve gleefully chanted along with the crowd. As they grow, I hope they’ll learn that political activity is a civic duty, part of being a responsible member of society – and that sometimes advocating an ethical position requires civil disobedience, with all the risks that entails. But I’m a left-libertarian Quaker whacko, raised by communists … YMMV.
slowguy, speaking from a parent point of view … I don’t understand the mindset either.
As I mention repeatedly … I teach, I coach, etc … as we saw with the Richard (bodybuilder kid) situation … when it comes to kids, very little that they do is actually really about the kids.
Perhaps the 12 year old does understand what is going on … but I find it unlikely. As someone in this thread pointed out … it is very unlikely that they have an opinion that is not a mirror-image of their parents. I find the same thing in class when my freshmen will start talking politics (Oh, the humor).
It really is rare to meet parents that truly put the well-being of their kids before whatever image the parents are trying to project to others.
I respect that you are teaching your kids that citizenship is more than shutting up and buying stuff, but would you allow your 6 year old to ‘take water to terry’ and get arrested while you gave a commentary to the media?
Absolutely not – his safety is paramount. Nor would I presume to inject myself and my opinions into the Schaivos’ affairs by offering commentary.
I guess my main point is simply that encourageing kids to be engaged in issues of ethics and politics – even if their own opinions don’t mesh with mine – is or should be a part of parenting. And I wouldn’t underestimate the sophistication of children. My six-year-old is pretty good at parsing right and wrong. He stills slugs his brother once in a while, but he knows he’s wrong.
That said, this incident does strike me as exploitative on the surface, but I know very few of the facts. I’m agnostic, but I wouldn’t jump in to damn this guy without more information.
In my opinion the parent should also be arrested for child abuse. Children should not be indoctrinated. They should be taught to be open minded and to seek knowledge on both sides of all issues and then to make an intelligent, rational decision.
Note: I am not a parent but I hope to be one soon. I pray that i have the wisodm to allow my children to explore the world through their own eyes and experince it themselves and not through me.
The ironic part is…if one of these people actually go to Terry, and “gave her some water,” she’d probably drown rather than be able to swallow it. Common sense, of course, has never stopped these people.
I think you are the type of person who should have kids then. I thinks parents should teach their kids how to think not what to think (probably not going to catch on anytime soon though). And while I don’t underestimate kids ability to understand right and wrong I think that this issue is too complicated (emotionally, ethically, legally, religiously) for an adolescent to understand in a meaningful way.
Maybe the kid doesn’t want Terry to die and that is a noble thing but does he understand that she may not have wanted to live that way?
I think that everyone is jumping on the Shiavo bandwagon for their own purpose and not for what is best for Terry.
Does anyone else think that it is ironic that the same Congress that vote to cut Medicaid funding would also vote to have the Shiavo case heard in federal court with the underlying assumption being they would keep her on the feeding tube? The way I see that is “Yes, we want Terry alive in particular but in general people in her condition we don’t” since Medicaid funds a number of cases of people in vegetative states (I heard a representative from the group Not Dead Yet talk about Medicaid funding for people in vegetative states so that may not be entirely true).
I remember similar things happening during the Elian Gonzalez debacle. When crowds got rowdy and unruly and the police used force all of a sudden parents were tossing little kids into the front lines so that they could claim police brutality and get a good photo on the front page of the paper of a crying child and cops in riot gear.
What is it with you people in Florida anyway??? I thought all the wackos were here in California?
The Little Rock Nine weren’t 12 years old I think they were old enough to have formed individual beliefs and to some extent knew what they were in for.
What’s the cutoff? I think the Little Rock Nine were ages 14-16 at the time. I guess 14 is old enough, in your opinion, for someone to form their “own individual beliefs,” but 12 isn’t?
and to some extent knew what they were in for.
I don’t know if they knew what they were in for or not, but I bet this 12 year old had a pretty good idea. And of course he’s “in for” a lot less trouble and grief than they were.
True, but that fact doesn’t bear on the supposed objections to the 12 year old kid protesting in Florida. People are claiming it’s such an odious situation because his beliefs- gasp!- are informed by his parent’s beliefs, and that the situation puts him in danger somehow, and that makes his dad so irresponsible he’s virtually guilty of child abuse.
Both conditions apply at least as strongly to the Little Rock Nine, and yet nobody now finds their actions- and that of their parents- so awful.
The fact is that people who are objecting to this deal in Florida don’t have a problem with the fact that the kid is 12, or that he’s going to face the absolute horrors of a couple of hours in the cooler with like-minded protesters, and they don’t really believe his dad is endangering him. They just disagree with the position.
The Little Rock Nine were the nine black high school students around whom the issue of school desegregation raged in 1957. The governor of Arkansas deployed the National Guard to keep them out of a white high school, then Truman nationalized the Guard and sent them home. Then he sent in the 101st Airborne to back the Nine up. Mob violence ensued.