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No Mother's Day Projects In New York School?  Oh dear!

by Pat Pending

The news media has been in a flurry recently about a private school in New York that has established a new policy under which mother's day will no longer be honored.  In previous years, the children made cards or other trinkets for their mothers for mother's day, but that policy was ended due to pressure from a gay father of one of the children.  Some members of the media have been fussing and fuming that this is terrible, that the sky is falling, and the world is coming to an end.  Really?

Perhaps we might consider this situation from another perspective -- as an example of the beauty of private education.  Remember that every single family attending that school has the ability to choose whether or not it wants to accept that "no mother's day" policy.  If any family finds the new policy to be upsetting, it can remove its child from the school, stop paying tuition to the school, and find another school more suitable to that family's ideas.  Nobody is forced to support that policy.  If the school finds that it is losing lots of tuition money over that policy, it may choose to change.  Or, it may become a haven for like-minded people who oppose the celebration of mother's day.  We may not want to send our children to that school, but that's what freedom is all about.  Each consumer gets to choose what he or she wants to buy, and the individual consumers do not have to be in the majority in order for their views to count.  They can just take their money to the place that meets their needs.

Now, consider the difference between that private New York school and your local government school.  If your government school decides to teach reading by the "see and say" method (which doesn't work), or if it teaches life styles or belief systems that are offensive to you, then you have no say in the matter.  You cannot simply take your children and your tuition money to another school as the parents in the New York private school can.  Instead, you will be forced to continue giving the government school your money and financially supporting programs with which you may vehemently disagree.  The school may teach evolution, when you believe in creationism, or it may teach creationism when you believe in evolution.  It may teach children that their parents are stupid and that only the teachers can be trusted to tell them the truth.  It may teach them that the environment is more important than the people who live in it.  It may teach them any number of things that you believe are wrong or harmful.  Too bad!  You will still support that school with your money (at gun point if necessary), like it or not.

Now, which situation should be of more concern -- the one in which some people are voluntarily supporting an education program that many of us may consider a bit kooky, or the one in which everyone is forced to support a program whether they like it or not?  Which has the greater potential for doing serious harm?  Where are all those media pundits when there is really a serious problem afoot?  Why, they are up in New York worried about children who aren't making cards for their mothers!