Modern Tattle-Tellers: The New Disease

Hormone filled milk may be making our children grow faster but can the rash of tattle-telling that's spreading across the country also be attributed to this liquid steroid?

One stint on an elementary school playground and you can count on several children, who even if they've never seen you before, will make sure that you know that Gary pulled their jacket, Jen kicked a piece of mulch in their eye, and John peed in the bushes. And yes, these don't even sound like such terrible events. They're not! That's the problem.

It's not obesity that we need to worry about, it's snitches, rats and informers. The playgrounds are infested with them. I don't remember running to my teacher at recess. Heck, was she even there or was she in the classroom working on a macrame owl? I don't know. I was too busy trying to make myself throw-up on the swings. Too busy chasing down Fernando with the rest of the girls. You stayed away from the teachers (if they were there) at all costs. If you got too close to them you might be there when they say it's time to come inside and then the other kids would think that you were the one to remind them that recess was over. Another down-side to hanging within twenty feet of the teachers was the image issue. You could be the worst kid in school but three seconds too long near the teachers made you the infamous "Teacher's Pet". Only the turtle-neck girls with Member's Only jackets wanted to talk to their teacher at recess.

So, another generation later and all that unspoken code has gone to the schoolyard hound. Now kids want teachers to intervene in the transgressions of their classmates down to the push and shove. It's gone from Lord of the Flies to self-imposed micro-management.

You know what kids?... it's called INJUSTICE and you better get used to it. It's called, Beth floods the toilet on purpose and everyone gets to sit on the curb at recess. It's called your Matchbox car that you brought to school is now my Matchbox car that I take home, wrap up, and give to my kid like it's brand new. It's called why don't you play with one of the other two hundred children rather than Katie who has been mean, according to you, for the last five hundred recesses?

Don't come to me unless they've taken your very essence, memorized your lunch account number (and have used it), said terrible things about your Mother, and put your soul on eBay for sale. Then we'll have the nicey-nice talk and for a moment, you'll think that everyone in the world will be as nice as me.