Yesterday, I was forwarded an e-mail through which I could click a link to sign a petition for Caylee’s Law.
My understanding is that this law would make it a felony if parents don’t report their children missing.
I can’t believe this has to be a law. I can’t believe parents have to be required BY LAW to report their children missing. I mean, I guess the point here is it has to be a felony in order for there to be consequences greater than a misdemeanor if one is to, hypothetically, not report one’s child missing and then be a part of a summer blockbuster court case.
But I still feel like, why do we have to write this down and make it a law?
This brought me back to several weeks ago at the gym when I was trying to work out without the distractions of my children, who now actively request the child-care drop off and then spend hours telling me about the computers they were glued to. I used to care, and beg them not to spend their time on the computer at the gym; I’d threaten no shows at our house, so they didn’t get excess screen time. Used to. Now, whatever, so they play some Donkey Kong. And the baby has turned over a new leaf, and is like a celebrity at the child care center (after a period of yelling her face off the second I left)–they all love her, she prances around the toddler room pushing a baby stroller–everyone’s happy. So my one hour of peace and quiet a day…until. WEINER. I had to run on the treadmill confronted with all 11 television sets beaming pictures of Anthony Stupid Weiner and his dumb chest. It was enough to make me want to get off the treadmill and hang with my kids.
Stupid Anthony Weiner and his stupid tweeted pictures and his stupid lies. And all I kept hearing was that he shouldn’t, really, have to resign because he didn’t break an ACTUAL written-down rule. Maybe, maybe if he’d used computers owned by the government to send his stupid Weiner pictures around through cyber space–maybe that was a broken rule? But it wasn’t ACTUALLY against the Congress’ code of ethics.
Really? It’s ETHICALLY ok to send weiner pictures around? Is that what I should tell my children?
Because I regularly make the point that just because I don’t actually SAY something is not ok, doesn’t mean that it’s ok. I don’t tell them for instance “Don’t put the baby in the toilet.” I don’t remind them every morning as they leave (when they DID leave, on the glorious yellow bus to school, instead of spending their summer days looking at me and saying in rotation “WhatcanwedoWhatcanwedoWhatcanwedoWhatcanwedoWhatcanwedoI’MBORED”)–when they got on that wonderful bus, I didn’t kiss them and say “Don’t smack your teacher today, don’t drop any f-bombs on the playground, don’t take any pictures of yourself in your underwear, and do NOT tweet any pictures, if you do take them”. I didn’t say that BECAUSE EVEN THOUGH THEY ARE 5 and 7 (and don’t tweet anything, to be honest) they KNOW that that stuff is not ok.
We spend our days trying to raise our children right–from wherever we are. Home, watching them. Home, trying to work and assuming they are fine as we blog and e-mail and (maybe facebook). At the office, as we count on a trusted helper to keep a good eye out. As moms–as parents–we work on instilling good values and rules even if those rules are unsaid.
I think it’s pretty sad that it turns out that rules like “Don’t tweet your weiner” have to be said. And even sadder, of course, that the entire missing child situation even has to exist.
Tougher and tougher to raise our kids right.
Tags: Caylee Anthony, Ethics, following the rules, Weiner