In case you haven’t noticed, it’s back to school time (HAHA kiddos) and that means it’s back to stupid time as well.
For the last decade, every year about this time, we get the cataclysmic report decrying the fact that our precious teenage high school students are being destroyed as human beings by the fact that they are forced to awake in the morning and actually get their asses to school before 9AM.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/08/06/teen-sleep-school-start/31212457/
To be fair, this yarn existed way back when I was going to school with varying sizes and genders of Triceratops, Tyrannosaurus Rexes and Velociraptors. The difference is that way back then, people discarded such alleged science as garbage because the real world didn’t work that way and regardless of how much or little a teenage brain had developed, they had to learn that getting up early and creating and maintaining some sort of sleep discipline is part of life. What’s amazing about these nutty teenage apologists is that they don’t quit…ever. They’re the Winston Churchill of pussiness. They never, never, never quit. Here we are decades later, still getting their annual reports on the front page of every major website and most concerning, all signs point to their eventual victory.
For those of you who doubt me, explain how schools currently expel children for playing with Zombie hunter guns on their own front laws, or for throwing invisible grenades, or using pop tarts as imaginary weapons, or carrying Wonder Woman lunch boxes…all things which have happened in the last year in this nation.
Allow me to rewind for a moment and attempt to present this asinine case regarding our precious teens and their poor wittle sleep deprived bwains in the most objective way I can; to be as fair as possible, I will quote straight from the annual pukey Pablum we were subjected to last week:
Most teens start school too early in the morning, which deprives them of the sleep they need to learn and stay healthy, a new study says…”It makes absolutely no sense,” said physician M. Safwan Badr, a past president of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. “You’re asking kids to learn math at a time their brains are not even awake.”… The American Academy of Pediatrics …urged middle schools and high schools to start no earlier than 8:30 a.m. in order to allow teens — who are biologically programmed to stay up later at night than adults — to get the recommended 8.5 to 9.5 hours of sleep each night.
God damnit so much. Grow the f*&k up.
Ooops…there I go again. Sorry, that was my “America is a great country and strives to be better than all” brain, which I was supposed to retire decades ago. My apologies. I forgot that we’re supposed to coddle people into their late 20’s and continue to refer to them as children, to the tune of allowing them to remain on their parents’ health insurance until the age of 26, amongst other appalling infantilization movements of this dumbasss country.
Those of us who live in an America ruled by the morality of the 1990’s say things like “they’ll learn the hard way,” or “that’s not how it works in the real world,” when it comes to topics like “trophies for everyone.” Those phrases we utter are meaningless since the “real world” is assimilating to the idea that everyone’s feelings matter most. Goal and accomplishment boards are being removed from sales offices across the country so that the worst performer doesn’t feel shamed or bullied by their ineptitude and other forms of catering to and coddling the worst of the workforce are all around us.
On the issue of “sleeping in,” however, we may be approaching the final frontier. Imagine the stupidity of showing teenagers that the world caters to their needs at the exact time in their lives they should begin learning that the world does not actually revolve around them. What of the 18 year old who goes from high school to the military and is suddenly awaken by reveille at sun up? What of the high school graduate who pursues his dream of trading stocks, which starts on the west coast at 6:30 AM? What of the kid who heads to the police academy and finds out upon graduation that he or she is now working flex shifts which begin one day at 4PM and another day at 5AM?
The years of 15-17 are very difficult for most teens and they’re supposed to be. It’s what toughens us up and prepares us best for the rigors of what’s left of the real world. In some cases, it shows us who are too soft and need more time developing, whether it be at a college or in their mom’s basement. Either way, society doesn’t want them any more than they want to be part of society. Where exactly do we draw the line when catering to American teens and their needs? When, exactly, in their lives, do we look at them say “life’s not fair, deal with it.” Sadly, the answers seem to be “never.”
