Category Archives: Mr. Boy

Speaking of being written up as violence-prone in elementary school these days, Mr. B. is right on the cusp of a serious encounter with the system. It’s March, and after almost eight months of public school’s regimen, he’s starting to show signs of, shall we say, impatience. Meaning we had a little visit with the principal the other day to learn about what the bureacracy considered "a serious incident." Seems a parent had complained that Mr. B. had threatened to break a kid’s arm if he didn’t stop harrassing him. Adding to another (to my mind) equally fanciful threat to a girl who he said wouldn’t stop chasing him at recess to "drop a car on her head," we had trouble in River City.

The system, presumably inspired by the Colombine massacre and all the other in-school shootings of recent years, considers a threat of bodily harm (even from a skinny 7-year-old who thinks he’s Batman) to be a threat with a capital T. It no longer suffers the normal repartee of little boys. I might add it also only allows them a 30-minute recess three times a week to blow off steam. So we’re not reading Harry Potter (among other things he likes) this week as punishment. So far he’s staying clean. I’m going to start bringing burgers and eating lunch with him once a week to try and help his attitude. Mom will do the same. But I feel sorry for him, having to grow up like this–just another cog in the Nanny State.