This.

Kazzy

One man. Two boys. Twelve kids.

Related Post Roulette

21 Responses

  1. Miss Mary says:

    Oh stop, you’re going to make me cry.Report

  2. Jason Kuznicki says:

    I think we’re going to be okay…

    You heartless sociopathic monster. Don’t you care?Report

  3. It never ceases to amaze me how important such seemingly trivial things as being the line leader are to kids. My daughter’s teacher apparently has a system where the line leader is assigned on a rotating, daily basis. When the teacher announced who would get to be the line leader on what day, my daughter proceeded to spend the next week counting down the days until it would be her turn to be the line leader. Like literally the first conversation of the morning upon her waking up would be:

    “What day is today?”

    “Thursday, sweetie.”

    “Guess what dad?”

    “What?”

    “Only six more days until I get to be the LINE LEADER!”

    This is yet another reason why kids rule.Report

    • Kazzy in reply to Mark Thompson says:

      Heh… it really is true. Mine rotate on a weekly basis in a predictable manner and you get kids attempting to figure out when it will be there turn. And the great thing is simply knowing that they will have a turn in a predictable manner means the world to them. They could be the last kid to get a turn, having to wait 12 weeks for the big day. But, dagnabbit, KNOWING they have a turn coming to them in PRECISELY 12 weeks is exciting.

      “ONLY 12 WEEKS UNTIL I’M THE LINE LEADER?!?! WAHOO!!! Before today, I didn’t even know I was going to get to be it!Report

    • Mike Schilling in reply to Mark Thompson says:

      And the next day, I get to be assistant line leader!

      That’s assistant *to* the line leader.Report

      • Kazzy in reply to Mike Schilling says:

        The key is to give everyone a job. For at least the first go around, they’re excited to be charged with a responsibility that even table setter or floor sweeper seems important. That doesn’t last forever, unfortunately, but usually for most of their time with me. Going forward, though, it’s all about the double L’s…Report

  4. It was incredibly late getting into the office this morning because of foul weather. Plus, I was on my own for our usual hour taking walk-ins. And we were packed.

    This would usually be a perfect recipe for molar-threatening levels of jaw-clenching frustration and ire.

    This morning, I was just glad I got a spend time around a whole bunch of smiling kids.Report

  5. Roger says:

    My wife kept watching the news all weekend, and was extremely depressed to say the least. I kept trying to warn her…

    Today she went back to school (she volunteers, helping in classrooms twice a week), and came back refreshed and positive again.

    Nothing like children to put into perspective what the world is all about.Report

    • Brandon Berg in reply to Roger says:

      To be honest, I don’t get it. Thousands of children die every day. It’s terrible, sure, but why am I, or anyone else who didn’t know them, supposed to regard these particular children’s deaths as especially tragic?Report

      • Kazzy in reply to Brandon Berg says:

        BB,

        I think this is a fair (if somewhat callously phrased) question. I wondered about it myself. I think there are a lot of factors that go into the concentration of outrage, dismay, etc. that surrounds this myself, some of them legitimate and some of them troubling.Report

        • Brandon Berg in reply to Kazzy says:

          My best guess, honestly, is that this is something that could more plausibly happen to us. I don’t have any children, but even if I did the odds of them dying from malaria or a parasite infection would be essentially nil. The odds of them getting shot at school would also be essentially nil, but it’s at least something I could imagine. Is this a parent thing, maybe?Report

          • Kim in reply to Brandon Berg says:

            Drink water from any untreated source in America (outside of Puerto Rico I suppose), and you’ve got some odds of your kid dying from parasites (giardia).Report

          • Kazzy in reply to Brandon Berg says:

            A non-exhaustive list of factors:

            1) Demographics… American children, predominantly white children, young children, suburban children
            2) Intent… Malaria doesn’t “murder” its victims; these children were deliberately killed
            3) “It could happen to you”… what you say above
            4) Concentration… 20 children dying one each in 20 different cities resonates differently than 20 children dying in one room
            5) Gruesomeness… a gun shot wound is more horrifying than an unseeable infection

            This tragedy struck me because I teach children not much younger than those killed in the attack. But it struck me differently than it did the non-teacher parents here. Which was different than how it struck non-teacher non-parents. No one’s reaction is right or wrong, better or worse, just informed by their unique circumstances. Similarly, I was in high school when Columbine happened. And had just graduated college when VTech happened. So those events resonated with me in a different way than OK City or 9/11.

            But I did wonder about and debated discussing (thought ultimately decided not to) why these 20 tragic deaths were somehow a greater motivation to address gun violence than the scores of kids dying on the streets of Chicago or DC or Baltimore or LA every year. To say nothing of the thousands who die all around the world and whose death are just as, if not more, preventable.Report

            • Just Me in reply to Kazzy says:

              I too thought that very same thing. In fact I was discussing this yesterday off blog and decided it wasn’t something that I was going to post about on here. I thought people’s emotions were already a little raw to start talking about this. I don’t know why, but sometimes it seems to be more appropriate to discuss certain things in person versus discussing them online. Maybe because I can break in and say “no no that is not what I mean” when the other person doesn’t understand quite where I am coming from.Report

        • Michael Cain in reply to Kazzy says:

          Yeah, concentration. A few hundred kids were killed in the various states’ foster care systems this year. A few hundred will be killed next year. Some starved, some by other forms of neglect, some beaten to death. But the media coverage is thin, and local. The President doesn’t come to pray for them. But their deaths are just as tragic, and probably more preventable than mass shooting by a crazy.Report

      • Roger in reply to Brandon Berg says:

        Because the death of a child is tragic. Focusing on the tragic is tough for the human soul.Report