Saint James School Ed-Line, November 6, 2009
Every Friday, Saint James School sends out an email called the Ed-line, which has information and news about the school's current events. It also includes a letter from the head of the school, Mrs. Melba Richardson. She was my principal when I was in middle school, and before that, she served as a teacher at Saint James.
From time to time, her letters in the Ed-line hit home with me. I will respond, and sometimes she shares my response with the faculty and staff. I was privileged to have this happen again last Friday, November 6.
Dear Saint James Families,
Do you remember years ago when WSFA would begin their news coverage by announcing, "It is 10:00. Do you know where your children are?" I can't remember the years they did this but it always reminded me that there probably was a problem with children out and parents not knowing where they were. Parenting is tough today and children of all ages feel more freedom in a number of ways. While most of you keep close tabs on your children, I believe we all need to be reminded that children under 21 years of age are our parental responsibility.
Children need guidelines and both parents need to be consistent with each other on the rules of the house, the rules of the school, and rules of society.
Throughout the years, I have found children to truly want guidelines and appreciate those being enforced consistently by adults in charge. I have also found that children tend to pattern their behavior after the behavior we exhibit and thus it is our challenge to always be good role models. I remember my son writing me a letter from college and the gist of his message was that while he "appeared" not to listen to what my husband and I told him at times, he really did listen and so much of what we said was great advice that he often thought about in college. So, even when you think your children aren't listening, continue to give them good advice.
Bill and I made plenty of mistakes with parenting as all of you have made. However, we had some hard and fast rules that we simply would not compromise. One was that our children always had to let us know where they were and if they changed location, they had to call and let us know. Responsible adults had to be present at those locations and they had to be adults we knew. I remember once our daughter forgot to tell us she was going from one friend's house to another. She was fifteen years old at the time. We tried to call her and were unable to find her at the "supposed" location. We panicked, thought of all the bad things that might be happening to her, and for over an hour, called everyone we knew to find her. We finally realized she had gone to her best friend's house but had forgotten to call us about the change. Bill and I got in the car, drove the friend's house, and instructed her to get in the car to go home. When she got in the car, she informed us that she was embarrassed, humiliated, and could not believe we had done that in front of all her friends. We informed her that she was paying the price for forgetting to let us know where she was. Needless to say, that never happened again with her. In fact, when she was a few years older, Bill and I took a trip and forgot to call her that we had arrived safely. She called to scold us!
Know where your children are, know their friends, and be firm about what they can and cannot do. There are many young people around the country who think nothing of breaking laws, participating in illegal and inappropriate activities, and are setting themselves up for an unsafe environment where they could be impaired in making good decisions. All of us in this country need to wake up and realize that good parenting requires hard work, a consistent effort, and that in order to be good parents; we will be inconvenienced at times. We love your children, we want them to be safe, and we appreciate all you do to provide great parenting at home. We are Saint James School!
Melba Richardson
Head of School
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Dear Mrs. Richardson,
I really loved your update today; it really made me think about my father because when I was younger, he had the exact same policy about calling him and letting him know where we were, who we were with, and which adults were there. It bothered my sister more than it bothered me, probably because since she was his little girl, he enforced it for a longer period of time on her. As she got older and moved down here, she called him EVERY MORNING to let him know where her route was that day, etc.... he always told her to drive safely and be careful and to check in with him. Now she cries because she he's not here anymore to worry and care about her, at least not in an Earthly since.
I was just engaged in a debate on Facebook (so serious .grins.) about how I turned on "Family Guy" last night, and within ten seconds, I knew why I quit watching that garbage. The main character, Peter Griffin, had just compared Jesus to Snoopy and "...all other lovable, children's characters." He accuses me of living in an "imaginary world", which makes me so angry because I do not know how to defend COMMON SENSE. When I look at the mainstream and how MOST people ARE raised these days, it is NO WONDER our society is in such shambles and why people pay a FORTUNE to go to private school to receive the same education they once received for free in public schools, decades ago. You said it best in an Ed-Line when you posed the question: Can you afford NOT to send your kids to private school?
Americans used to be intelligent enough to be entertained without vulgarity, excessive profanity, and trash. However, as we have "dumbed" down our society and thrown morality out the window, reflections of the consequences are evident in our culture... or lack thereof! All you have to do is look around and you can see it everywhere. I'm no shining angel by any stretch of the imagination, but it's pathetic what has happened to us in just that last few decades. When I look at all that my poor grandmother has seen, it breaks my heart. When I go home on the weekends to watch her, we watch the news together, and it's amazing listening to her comments and watching her facial expressions on current events. At 96 years old, her long-term memory is not what has suffered, as usually is the case. She tells me that she worries about the mess we are going to inherit, and I fear she's right, if people don't stop this madness.
I may have gotten a little off track, but it all is evidence of your point on parenting: I believe it all goes back to the way we are raised by our parents. Brady and I were lucky enough to have the world's greatest super-father, and despite my mother's problems today, she was not always ill; She was a good mother in our very early years. At 28 years old and being virtually parent-less now as I am the one who is "parent" to my grandmother, I appreciate what was taught to me as a youngster, and I am grateful for it. As I have told you many times, I am ESPECIALLY grateful for my education and family at Saint James School, and I would not trade it for anything.
Do I live in an imaginary world? No, I do not. I live in the world which made this country the greatest country in the world in the shortest period of time in history. I live in the real world, with other people, who believe in strong, good values, which must be taught at home and still demonstrated in school. Perhaps one day I, too, will be a parent, and I will have the blessings of getting to raise a child with these same values, in the REAL world.
God bless you, Mrs. Richardson, and have a terrific Friday and weekend!
Sincerely,
Bo Holt