31 August 2007

New Jersey parents want to shield their kids from reality

Across the river from my hometown of Philadelphia (the City of Brotherly Love), some parents in New Jersey find it "horrifying" that a local elementary school wanted to show its students a film titled "That's A Family".

According to a report by KYW Newsradio reporter Hadas Kuznits, "The film was narrated by children who come from various types of families -- single parent families, ethnically mixed families, families with adopted children, and those with gay moms and dads. That didn't sit well with some parents."

Apparently, these disgruntled parents want to shield their children from the real world. In the real world, we have all those kinds of families and more. But it seems that these parents want our children to be taught to believe that the only valid families are the ones that resemble a 1950s TV show like "Father Knows Best" or "The Donna Reed Show" -- with two straight white parents (a dominant, successful, professional father and a beautiful, subservient housewife mom) caring for two perfect blond children.

But the real world doesn't look like that. And children will discover this fact sooner or later. And the later they discover it, the more confused they will be.

Schools exist to help children develop the knowledge and skills they need to succeed in the real world. Schools do not exist to paint a picture that some bigoted parents might find a more suitable alternative to reality.

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