School Nanny Staters Say ‘No Best Friend For You’

posted at 7:30 pm on June 24, 2010 by Lori Ziganto
[ Education ]   

Originally posted at NewsReal:

The Anchoress, over at First Things, is one of my favorite bloggers. She has a way of cutting right to the chase, yet in a thoughtful and intelligent manner. Her recent post, in response to an article in The New York Times, is a perfect example of why she is one of my must reads.

The article details the views of “experts” who now say that children should be discouraged from having best friends. That’s right. Best Friends Forever, otherwise known as BFFs, are now bad. I wonder if these so-called experts have any friends of their own, or if they’ve chased them all away with their pious “enlightened” mentality. That, or their super annoying sanctimony.

I think this recent trend of completely arse backwards “studies” may actually be retribution by scientists and alleged experts, for being shoved in lockers, receiving atomic wedgies and all that pointing and laughing.  I used to just giggle as I imagined them holed up in their little laboratories, shiny slide rules glinting under the fluorescent lights, geekily high-fiving each other’s clipboards. However, all these studies and recommendations and such affect me now, because they are causing steam to come out of my ears with anger and that’s really not a good look for me.

From The New York Times article:

. . . increasingly, some educators and other professionals who work with children are asking a question that might surprise their parents: Should a child really have a best friend?
…
“I think it is kids’ preference to pair up and have that one best friend. As adults — teachers and counselors — we try to encourage them not to do that,” said Christine Laycob, director of counseling at Mary Institute and St. Louis Country Day School in St. Louis. “We try to talk to kids and work with them to get them to have big groups of friends and not be so possessive about friends.”

“Parents sometimes say Johnny needs that one special friend,” she continued. “We say he doesn’t need a best friend.”

Oh, really? And who are you to tell me what my child needs?

As a mom who home schools her 7-year-old daughter, currently working at 2 grade levels above where a public school would place her, that is one of my biggest pet peeves. I’m so tired of the incessant “But, but — what about her socialization?” I’m sorry, but I thought school was for, you know, education. I didn’t realize that it was social hour. Personally, I prefer to not have my child forced into socializing with whomever a school randomly places her with, all of the exact same age, to boot.

When in life are you ever in a situation where you deal solely with people who are your exact same age? My daughter, Gracie, plays with children after school every day and “socializes” with them at our community pool for hours daily. She “socializes” with children of all ages. Since she’s never been indoctrinated to believe otherwise, she is not intimidated by older kids nor does she look down upon younger kids. They are all just kids to her. And she does have a best friend, an 8-year-old boy named Will. There is nothing wrong with that. The Anchoress correctly explains why schools and the so called experts want you to believe that there is:

This isn’t about what’s good for the children; it is about being better able to control adults by stripping from them any training in intimacy and interpersonal trust. Don’t let two people get together and separate themselves from the pack, or they might do something subversive, like…think differently.

This move against “best friends” is ultimately about preventing individuals from nurturing and expanding their individuality. It is about training our future adults to be unable to exist outside of the pack, the collective.

Bingo. For all their talk of individuality and alternative lifestyles and the like, the left wants nothing of the sort and they’ve extended that agenda to our schools. They do not want free thinkers. They want pack mentality. They don’t want individual freedom. They want sheep.

Well, they’ll have to try with someone else’s kid. My child won’t be forced to conform with the pack and her best friend allows her to be who she wants to be. Unconditionally.

The Anchoress ends by mentioning it’s yet another reason to consider homeschooling. I’d only amend that to say that it is yet another reason why I do home school.

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