Everyone Line up!

We are the line up,
The line up crew.
Line up! Line up!

Everyone line up.
You know what to do.
Line up! Line up!

Put your hands at your sides.
Stand up straight.
Put a smile on your face.
You're doing great!

Line up, line up.
Line up, line up!

Ron Brown


My child attends a youth center, or what amounts to an after school care program. He attends for purely social reasons. Each day, we meet his publicly schooled friends, who have been escorted from school by a few members of the youth center staff to the front entrance of the center. The kids are told to line up outside the door. They must form a neat, straight, quiet, still line before they are granted entry into the building.

They are, naturally, totally jazzed about not being stuffed into their tiny classrooms, where they have spent the last six hours at a desk, not allowed to stand, bounce, jump, talk, laugh, play, or work on their own talents and interests. Now, faced with a few hours of fun before their parents pick them up, they are made to stand in line.

Often, we will arrive late enough that all the kids are inside and unburdening themselves of their backpacks, thereby missing out on the lining-up hoopla. Sometimes, we arrive in time to experience the ritual, as I think it is quite the educational experience (and dinner conversation piece) for my son.

Sometimes it takes a good five minutes before they are lined up good enough to go inside.

Am I the only one that sees something inherently wrong with this?

I never was struck by the absurdity of making kids line up until my youngest began attending the youth center. As I watched the kids being made to stand perfectly still, against their natures... it occurred to me that it's no wonder our society is a screwed up as it is. I mean, seriously, lining kids up like cattle, or robots?

How would you like it if, every morning, your boss made you line up outside the office while he (or, she) stood at the front of the line demanding compliance before you could go inside? Or, how about this one: you must beg for the opportunity during the workday to use the toilet. If one of your peers recently used it, your request will be denied because.. well.. we can't have everyone running off to the restroom! Or, how about: a coworker shows up late for work, and so you are all made to stay an hour after quitting time?

Sounds perfectly reasonable, yes?

Why do we treat kids as though they are less than us? They are smaller, and perhaps less developed emotionally and physically, but they are still just as human. It's ridiculous how we treat them, how we dominate them.. and sometimes, how we seem to derive some kind of twisted pleasure making them bend to our wills.

Just another of the reasons why I homeschool.

New to This Here Blogger.com

Doesn't everyone do these things? These blogs that don't really say much other than, "Hi. I'm new here. Just trying it all out!"

Well.. hi. I'm new here. Just trying it all out!

I come from the Land of Myspace, which is intended to be a teenage social tool rather than a mid-thirty something's blog space. I love myspace , don't misunderstand me. It's a wonderful way for incurable lazies like myself to keep in touch with multiple people all at once. Back when news had to travel by way of paper and stamps, I lost contact with so many people. Not so with myspace. Now, with the simple push of a bulletin button, ten different people from around the world (social butterfly I am not) know instantly what fabulously exciting things I've been up to, like what color underwear I have on, what I ate for breakfast, or the identity of my current crush.

I love it.

But this place... ahhh! A place just for blogging! Where has it been all my life?

As you can see from the picture of me (/points to the top of the page), I am seemingly confused. Aren't most of us? (Except for those who voted for Bush the second time around, who are actually and truly confused. Kidding kidding! Sort of... ) Most of us do not fit into neat little boxes of liberal, conservative, hippie, redneck, pro-this, pro-that, etc. Most of us are a mix of various viewpoints.

The media, and those who control the media, do not wish us to know this. At least, that is the impression that I get. They appear to do everything in their power to prevent us from knowing this: there is a mix of viewpoints which resides within most people, giving the majority of us a common ground from which we can prosper together, even across political, age, gender, and religious divides.

Sure the country is "divided". How could it not be when we are inundated with red states and blue states. Democrat and Republican. Believer and non-believer. But, that is just on the surface. If we could look deeper, we could see we are not so shallow as that.

There are nuts and fanatics, of course. People who attack doctors who perform abortions and women who use abortions like the latest birth control method. Those who use religion as a sign of superiority and a method for social control, and those who "don't believe in god" because they are in rebellion against their parents, society, conformity, or who use atheism as a sign of superiority. There are those who think the solution to the crisis in the middle east is to blow the entire region off the face of the earth, and those who think that soldiers are rapers, pillagers and baby-killers. There are the patrionuts who chant that the US of A is the end-all and be-all of civilization, and the down-with-the-USAtards who can't see any good in this country no matter how hard they try (they don't try very hard).

But most of us, I know, are much more moderate than that. We may disagree on topics of great importance (as well as those of trifling silliness), but compromise is within our grasp.. if we would only try. I really hope we do, and soon. I fear the consequences for us, and the world, should we fail to do so.


(It seems I had more to say than just hi. When I say I have just a little to say, don't believe me; it's almost never the truth.)

:)