Wearing All the Hats
My last column, which was in fact my first for the Meteor, covered a brief introduction to yours truly, as well as the recent trend in motor vehicle burglary and thefts. This week will be a bit of a rant, so bear with me. Consider it satire, unless of course you are among those who I am addressing.
I have been in this business since 1988. Law enforcement, believe it or not, is a customer service-based profession. I cannot think of another profession that is called upon to wear so many “different hats.” We are the “go to” for virtually every problem people face, and I sometimes jokingly say that we must play the role of dad, mom, doctor, counselor, friend, priest, and heaven forbid, sometimes even fireman all the while having copious amounts of bovine excrement thrown our way. There are members of our society that believe we are merely here to serve their every whim no matter how ludicrous the request may be. For instance, we actually get calls occasionally because someone didn’t get the service they thought they deserved at a local drive-through restaurant. Yes, you read that correctly. The adage which declares that someone is “a few fries short of a happy meal” comes to mind.
Sometimes a person will call your local law enforcement for assistance with their child. Some of these calls or requests are because “little Johnny or Jenny” won’t get out of bed for school, or “Johnny or Jenny” has smarted off to the reporting party. This is not a law enforcement issue people. This is a parental issue and quite simply requires some form of discipline, and shame on you if you have been lax in administering discipline throughout the child’s life. That would be on you, your fault, solely your responsibility.
Understand, discipline doesn’t necessarily entail corporal punishment. I could count on one hand the number of times I actually had to spank one of my children and I would not use all of the fingers of that hand. My kids turned out very well and are all productive members of society, as well as exceptionally wonderful parents themselves. However, if a situation required corporal punishment (they would be the first to attest that it had been earned too) they certainly were given a heaping helping of it post haste. As my grandmother told me once, “There is a direct connection between a child’s buttocks and their brains.”
Another issue that has rapidly increased over the last 30 years and seems to have become the de rigueur of our society is what we typically refer to as “baby mama drama.” While, in all fairness, the monicker is applicable to both sexes, thus, I guess sometimes it is actually “baby daddy drama.” I will inject right here; I detest both titles. Whenever someone uses one of these phrases, I quickly correct them with the following statement, “Oh, when you say, “baby mama,” you mean the girl you had sex with out of wedlock which resulted in the creation of a child?” “Right?” After listening to the associated drama and dribble that always follows, I will typically respond with, “So what you are saying is that you and this girl you were, by the way, adult enough to have sex with, are now not adult enough to figure how to communicate regarding the raising or visitation of the child your sexual union created?” What is more, these folks will often declare that their lawyer wants law enforcement to make a report regarding the fact that baby mama or baby daddy was not on time for visitation or returning the child, or something else that makes about as much sense as a football bat. Folks, we are law enforcement, the effects of your promiscuity are yours to bear, not ours, and we do not work for your lawyers. That attorney is costing you somewhere in the neighborhood of $250.00 an hour, and if anyone should be writing anything, it should be him.
In summation, what it all boils down to is for each of us to consider whether the issue we think needs to be reported to law enforcement is something that we should be dealing with ourselves, you know, like adults. Remember, when we are listening to your drama, we are not able to take criminals off of the street. Food for thought anyway.
Einstein said, “Two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I am not sure about the former.”
C. Klingle
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