Posted on 02/02/2007 9:25:32 AM PST by Johnny Gage
There's a childhood epidemic sweeping Minnesota and the nation. Its warning signs aren't fever or skin rashes. The symptoms are behavioral -- and unmistakable.
Consider a recent, particularly virulent outbreak of the affliction in Maplewood, N.J., as reported by the New York Times. In the last few years, out-of-control kids from the middle school have overrun the town's library after school. They routinely mouth off to librarians, disrupt common areas, leave restrooms a shambles and race about, sometimes almost knocking over elderly patrons
(Excerpt) Read more at startribune.com ...
Ping, if you would ping all the MN freepers.
Not liberal. She is the Stribs token conservative.
Our city just started a curfew for unattended teens at the malls. They have to be gone every evening by 6:00 (I think) unless they have an adult with them. I don't know what happens if they disregard the rule - maybe someone tazers them. It's an idea that my wife is happy with and she's started shopping at the mall a lot more than she did before.
Something probably happened to her at the library.
Katherine Kersten...highly liberal? Not hardly.
Part of the problem is the increasing use of public libraries for after-school day care. Parents send their kids "to the library" -- hey, it even sounds like a good thing. Kids as young as 5 or 6, left unattended, or watched by their older siblings.
It's free, it's "educational", and it passes off the problems to the state. Librarians are loathe to take action, because "where else do the kids have to go"?
There are a LOT of kids growing up without parents. Well, they have parents, but they see very little of them. It's almost like "Lord of the Flies", but as a day-trip.
It's happening in our library in Springfield, too, which is about five miles from Maplewood. The librarians claim the problem is that working parents refuse to allow their children to return home after school for fear they will destroy their houses. Thus, they must go the library, in droves, where there is no real "staff" to handle them. As a result the libraries are over-run with teens and pre-teens until closing time. They are hungry, they don't have food, they are bored, and they can be violent. Solution: shut down the libraries, no one takes out books anyway.
Really? Ok.. maybe I'm wrong on that point. LOL
I just assumed that anyone who writes for the Red Star is "highly liberal".
Katherine Kersten is not "a highly Liberal writer".
She's the 'other' conservative at the Star Tibune (Lileks is the other one).
Katherine is a key member of the conservative think-tank Center for the American Experiment, based in Minneapolis.
I went to my local county library branch recently to surf the web on my laptop in peace and quiet...
My, how times have changed.
I packed up after 15 minutes and left. I found it much quieter at the coffee shop.
"...But without rules and limits, kids become self-absorbed, disrespectful and unable to delay gratification, says Walsh. And without challenge and disappointment, they fail to develop the "psychological muscles" -- resilience, resourcefulness and determination -- that they will need to cope with life's inevitable adversity."
Substitute "kids" with "leftists," and you pretty much hit a bigger nail on the head.
Years ago in Chester, NJ it became clear that the library was being used as a day care center. Saturday morning the parents would drop the little miscreants off and the parents would then spend their time shopping without having to keep their children with them.
But there's actually nothing "conservative" about her perspective. It is in fact quite liberal. She draws upon our typical "excuse culture" and calls the behavior of the children a marked sign of what appears to be a psychiatric disorder the result of parental non-discipline. She comes close to "diagnosing" their behavior as ADD, the biggest psychiatric scam of our time. The behavior of the children has little to do with mental disease. To be charitable to the little ninnies, I think the problem is that they do not understand what libraries are. They do not understand that people go to libraries to read books. They do not understand why they must be quiet. In our library, which contains thousands of books, there are virtually no patrons and absolutely no reason for "silence."
Where else do they have to go? I tell you what: lower the drinking age and let them go to bars. They couldn't behave any worse, and if they drink enough they will pass out, thus cutting down on the time they have to annoy the rest of us. Get this, Librarians: libraries are not holding tanks for miserable kids. If that is all they are being used for, then shut them down.
This should be daily required reading for all parents, teachers and other people interested in a healthy society. Seasoned and unseasoned. Its so easy to forget and to give in to the prevailing culture.
Thanks for posting it, even from a source as surprising as this.
Darn. I would be more hopeful if the liberals were actually starting to get a clue about this.
They should try evicting misbehaving kids. If they refuse to leave, or come back, throw their butts in juvie for criminal trespass.
Most parents we know disapprove of the way we handle our kids, but they like the results. We make them do chores, tell them "no", and basically raise them the way we were raised as military brats.
Our kids are hard workers, polite, respectful, and we can take them anywhere.
No need to shut them down. Keep them open, sell off the books, which they will never read anyway, and turn them into "juvenile study centers." I cannot see any need for public libraries in our day and age. Do I "really" need a taxpayer funded institution, for god's sakes, to go and check out a battered up dog-eared copy of East of Eden?
People who subscribe to the "diagnosis" of ADD are virtually always liberals. They subscribe to the reigning orthodoxy. Been seeing it for years and years in my practice as a shrink. Oh well.
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