Another Brick in the Wall - an alternate view

"We don't need no education
We don't need no thought control
Hey, teacher leave the kids alone!
All in all you're just another brick in the wall."

What a great song. I remember watching The Wall for the first time in late adolescent. I think I was first introduced to Pink Floyd in our weekend drives with Pete & Lenny in the famous Datsun. Watching the lights of Medford from the east hillside, jamming to great music. No, no drugs. Simple friendship bonded by great LOUD rebellious music. Later I was introduced to the movie by my ex husband. Loved it.

My parents were terrible parents. They shielded me. Which was odd since they were PRIME 60's flower kids. Aww yea. I was a product of a 17 year old teenage mom. My dad, a prime college student, boy from the Eastside of town. You know, up on the hill. One of those. The blonde hottie (yes my mom was hot) gets the college guy (who was also quite hot, I've seen the abs). Together, combined, they taught me morals, values, boundaries, to think, not expect, act, EDUCATE and a word - NO. Hmmmm. Interesting considering they are late baby boomers. Free everything and yes to all.

So when I first heard this song, it resounded to my adolescent brain. NO more! Period! Stop forcing me into YOUR way of thinking. One of the best that will go in to history.

As it rotated into my shuffle during my run, it took a different tone. I heard it on the other side. As a parent in 2011. Ironically this music that played into our psyche's may have actually whipped us into submission instead of rebellion. We are a generation of tolerant parents. We've been taught that it's not okay to have standards for ourselves or our kids. That it's not okay for teachers to have behavior expectations at school or apply consequences and discipline to the kids when they step out of line. Instead of reigning in those that would break children, who should NEVER have been allowed in the school system, we've run to the extreme and tied all of their hands.

We are wimpifying our boys, the next generation of men. Girls rule, boys drool. The classroom is set around a girls way of thinking. Boys are asked to be quiet, not to have outburst, perhaps drugged to conform. Yelled at by playground volunteers if they use star wars gun hands or lightsabers on the playground. The girls are running with power. Boys feeling inadequate and something is wrong with them. The same boys that will be men. There are plenty of studies out there fighting against this poor thinking and yet, as parents - we've become just one more brick in the wall. We sit in our place and watch, letting others tell us what we shouldn't do and allow the formation of the next generation with their own agendas.

As our kids enter junior high, we're expected to take a step back and let others have our children. Mold them, form them, tell them what is right and wrong as the world see it. We feel weird, incapable, feel resistance and annoyance should we stand up and say something silly, like - HEY! I'M the parent and I want to be involved! As the government looks on and some unseen future comes. Our kids may be weak, unable to fight and look on from their own place in the wall. And they've been taught in their own way, definitely do not ask, tell, fight back, have expectation, standards, question. Even as they hear your parents, your teachers, the adults in your life, do NOT know anything and not only are they stupid, they don't have any right to discipline or attempt to direct you, they learn to accept and not create any waves. The Matrix comes to mind.

Maybe, if we were raising generations of fighters, 91101 would have had a different ending. Instead of allowing Hollywood, sports, tv, radio, the medical science industry finagle their way into guiding out kids and returned to where it should start - the home - Americans wouldn't be seen as a country ripe for takeover. Plugging ourselves in to the latest technology, isolating ourselves from each other, medicating ourselves in various ways, addicting ourselves to everything possible, relying upon industry to provide and meet our every need - we are being controlled and in our silliness, saying we don't want to be. We have become. Another brick in the wall.

Don't worry about the feel of cement hardening around your brain. The end won't hurt. We're already asleep.