Step 49: Realize You're More of a Grown-Up Than You Thought

I worked a shift tonight with T, the kid who replaced J. Initially I wanted him to be better than J, but alas. He's just J with "I got one better" complex. Any time anyone tells a story, he's got one better. And most of them are obviously lies. BUT ANYWAY.

Tonight, after he'd come back in from having a smoke break (yes, merely 20 years old and a smoker...why, kids, why?!), he came whining to me about how his high school friend had gotten a detention that day for "refusing to pray because it's Veteran's Day."

Now, I wasn't a witness to this, but I'm pretty sure her refusal to pray had nothing to do with it. I'm more inclined to understand that it was the way she went about her refusal that got her the detention. I would bet that, when the teacher called for a moment of silence to "pray" for our troops, she decided that it was Atheist Soapbox Time. And in doing so, disrepected the authority of her teacher, and was threfore granted an afternoon in detention.

Now, here's where I stand on the issue.

Should the teacher have called for a simple moment of silence, without mention of prayer? Absolutely, however mistakes happen.

Should the girl have gotten the detention for refusing to pray? Absolutely, because there is a better way to express her beliefs, or lack thereof, that would NOT have ruined what was meant to be a moment of respectful silence.

What she should have done, was bit her tongue and bowed her head for the moment. Then, once the class was over, she could have stayed back, and quietly informed the teacher that while she is happy to remain silent for a moment in a show of unified respect for the troops, it would have been better if the teacher left the idea of "prayer" out of it. America, as a country, was founded on the idea that no one should be required to believe the same thing as anyone else. Troops fought for that from the beginning, so to suggest that one must pray for them undermines their job more severely than it might seem on the surface.

Would she have gotten the detention if she'd done that? Probably. But it would have given her teacher something to think about, and she could have walked away with the knowledge that she acted in the most respectful way possible, without abandoning her own principles. As it is, she's just that snotty kid who couldn't just shut her trap for sixty seconds.

Which would YOU rather be?

Anyway, in thinking over the issue, I realized that were she my friend, and were I ten years younger, I would have been entirely on her side, and fired up on her behalf. And that's when I realized that I'm more of a grown-up than I ever would have given myself credit for.

YAY ME!

Also, pizza sounded good, so I made myself one. Then I paid for it. Because you can't be THAT adult about something, and then steal food.

Also, the two main characters in my NaNo had me worried for a second, as they are supposed to be MFEO, but weren't managing to find any chemistry whatsoever. Finally, today they found it! 8D

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