A school in upstate New York imposed some of the most extreme measures during the pandemic—including silent lunches and outdoor masking. The rules are still in effect.
What is with the Free Press and your ability to find terrible parents? Literally every one of these people who kept their kids in that "school", what, for the intimate atmosphere and whatnot (was that supposed to be a joke?). They paid for it. Its not some public school with layers of state bureaucracy behind it. It is a small private school and they PAID TO BE THERE. If they were too timid/stupid/lazy to vote with their feet i can accept that - at least its honest.
I am amazed they have 1 student, let alone full classrooms. But if covid taught me anything over the past 3 years is just how deeply some societies actually hate their kids.
"Progressive" karents will eagerly abuse their children for status through masks, jabs, and trans. They will teach blind obedience from EACMSI to Cornell, then wonder why their kids are so unhappy. In a sane world, the school would be shut down and the parents forced into counseling, but we live in a clown world: https://yuribezmenov.substack.com/p/how-to-karent-progressive-ivy-league
Spot on Re: munchausen’s by proxy analogy (Also known as Factitious Disorder imposed on another) a disorder (usually a parent or care giver) acts as if the child he or she is caring for has a physical or mental illness ) and perhaps the Covid protocols gave many parents assurance that their children would be protected from harm?
And now a bunch of those fools have hopped on the Trans fad. Parents seeing trans tendencies in 2- 9 year olds and then initiating "treatment" are surely practicing munchausen’s by proxy and should be jailed. One mass panic / hysteria after another. Good Lord!!
Progressives? Just like the left is not liberal, they were never progressive. We shouldn't call them liberals because they aren't and for the same reason we should not call them progressives.
The entire west coast and the northeastern states like lemmings, slavishly follow whatever BS the Democrats/Marxists lefts put out. They march lock step to the beat of the left's drum.
They should be called what they really are, tyrants. Think of all the things the left/woke/PC hates and tries to destroy. If that isn't tyranny, I don't know what is. So stop calling them progressives and call them what they really are, tyrants.
God bless the Democrats/Marxists. What next? Gulags?
If i could drill just one fact into the skull of every American, it is that the Nazi Party only dropped the Communist LABEL because the brand was already starting to go majorly bad in Europe (famines, gulags, pogroms anyone?). They dropped the LABEL, they kept the murderous ideology. They "nationalized" industry, and subordinated every interest and every individual to the Reich ("for the greater good").
The Nazi party were Communists, they even used the hammer / sickle emblem for a time. Nazis = Communists.
I sure do wish this fact was more widely known, but sadly the "left / right spectrum" non sequitor confuses & obscures it.
I'm not sure I'd call Hitler a communist as he didn't nationalize all industry, but he was certainly a leftist collectivist which is pretty much the same thing. Nazis being the extreme of the right is just a well sold lie to scare the low info crowd.
I like the term Lemmings better. But yes tyrant fools. Could this be a human version of the unlimited growth population experiments in rats? Is this foolishness most prevalent in our highest density population areas? Oh and the truth is, Lemmings are not so foolish and do not rush to their destruction except in legend and Disney movies.
I don't know why these parents are all upset about stupid repressive rules and mandates. The parents are told what to think and say by the woke/pc left and the professors and administrators of the left wing universities they all attended. They all marched to the Democrat drum Joe Biden beat with his unconstitutional mandates.
So why be upset with the dictators that run their very expensive, very elitist, far left school? Hell, I bet every one of these parents march like the glassy eyed lemmings they are into the voting booths and vote straight Democrat/Marxist ticket.
So why be upset by what through acquiescence they have all created.
Sadly, my experience over the years is that in the end, when given the chance Republicans fail us nearly as badly. It is a difference by degrees, which I suppose is better than nothing.
If you vote for anyone but an incumbent over a number of years, you may have a chance of flushing out the really corrupt, leaving the only somewhat corrupt scratching their noses trying to figure out how to increase their shares of power.
Accurate. Leftists are self-obsessed totalitarians and their kids are just props. I do wonder what would happen if Ukraine's Zelensky asked US Democrats specifically for volunteers, would they send their kids?
Yes. When did parents stop being their children's protectors? I would step in front of a train to protect my children, so I will certainly say no to a school administrator, a doctor, or the child themselves when needed. Parents (and people more generally in modernity) are afraid of all the wrong things. Fear the corruption of your soul, not the loss of a social group.
But in their mind, those parents DO indeed protect their children. Sadly, they are protected from growing up, from developing skills necessary to function as independent adults. Child abuse on a mass scale, aided and abetted by "caring parents".
Considering that having children *at all* is against Woke principles (bad for the climate and racist if you're white), I don't find it surprising that Woke parents would be bad parents.
I was scornfully called a "breeder" as long ago as the mid 90s. My female professors in grad school in the early 00s generally had a child (seldom more than one, and born toward the end of their child-bearing years), but I always sensed that they felt guilty for having reproduced, contrary to their elevated philosophies.
Celia, this is off topic. Just when you thought the left couldn't get any more perverse and thought mutilating children was as far as they would go, watch this, the new frontier of woke insanity:
Whatever happened to the hypocritic oath, "First do no harm."? Any doctor who see people mentioned in the above video should be sending them to a shrink, not pulling out his or her hacksaw.
"Can you imagine what this faculty is teaching the children?"
I don’t mean to sound Pollyannish, but it’s possible the past few years will spawn a new generation of Libertarians. I’m encouraged by the fact that the students developed their own sign language. One hopes it included the symbol for “fuck you”.
What? No round stickers with the slogan virtue signaling for getting the vaccine? What about a sticker for kids that says, "You taught me to speak; hear my voice."
My mother is still a member of an Old Order Mennonite church and they did absolutely nothing regarding Covid. It is only a congregation of a few hundred but I don't know of anyone who had Covid, let alone became very ill or died.
Compliance has been taught for a long time. I graduated from High School in the 1980s . Because some students had abused the privildge of being able to walk off campus at lunch, by the time I was in High School it was no longer an option. One transgression by one person leads to a new rule that takes away a little more liberty... over and over again.
There are also the parents who bring their young children to bizarre events like "Drag Queen Story Hours". It is a form of sexual exploitation of minors.
Covid taught me that the overwhelming majority of us are cowardly conformists, especially those who are highly educated and supposedly intelligent. Not that many free thinkers lol
"But the question is how did we get to that point in a generation or maybe two? What happened?"
Funny enough, I blame Donald J. Trump. He never in a million years should have given Faucci a stage, never mind a DAILY one. He never EVER should have agreed to "two weeks to slow the spread". He acted based on opinion polls, and missed a chance at true leadership. Instead, Sweden (SWEDEN!!) had to carry the mantle of sanity.
And I say this as someone who generally supports most of what Trump did or tried to do.
Yes but these parents are Democrats so to them it is very important for their kids to continue receiving a robust education on anal beads, slavery, doggystyle, and apartheid before finally becoming transvestites.
No price is too high!!
(I hope ever Democrat’s child got the maximum number of shots)
Think about the people you still see wearing masks today: overwhelmingly urban women. probably college educated and likely progressives.
The way to sell a product to a mom is to convince her that any alternative will make her child stupid or dead. Those are the urban, educated mom's worst fears. And this hits both: send your child here because we're a great school that puts your kid on the track to Harvard, and also because our measures will ensure your child never gets a disease that could kill them.
I agree with your assessment that they're terrible parents. This is child abuse at this point. But why is the school doing it? It's profitable.
Some of it though is acceptance of the concept of the village raising the child. Acceptance of that ultimately means ceding parental rights and responsibilities.
Ithaca has a _fabulous_ public school system, so it’s always been unclear to me why any parent living there would send their kids to private school except as a snob thing—God forbid that the offspring of the professor share a blackboard with the offspring of the janitor, right?
But if they don’t like the school’s policies, they should yank their kids out—and save $11,000-$18,000 a year.
Yes yes and yes. Stupid school to be sure (something tells me if they had one student left and he was alone on the playground, he would still be masked) but the parents are infinitely stupider. This is the stuff of nightmares and horror movies. The “my body my choice” “follow the science” crowd have revealed themselves to be the highest order of Sheeple. Shame on them.
"Because of her complaints, she said her kids almost got kicked out. After she begged, Stein said, the school let them stay."
So this parent is paying $11,000 to $18,000 a year per child to have her kids screwed up and taught horrible lessons for life, and then when they almost get kicked out she panics. What the fuck kind of crazy world is this?
My three-year-old granddaughter is full of thoughts and ideas, many of which we struggle to understand because her teachers and peers were fully masked (as required in Washington State by an uber liberal governor) for month after month during the pandemic. This at the very juncture when she was developing her language skills. Communicating with her is an enduring reminder of the idiocy of the mask-all-children policy that, in some cases, proved far more debilitating than the pandemic itself.
I cannot like this but thank you for sharing this. I am so sorry and it was so obvious to so many who had ever raised a child. My bet is that speech therapists and pathologists will become a growth industry.
Girard, Girard everywhere.. We're all just dumb ass apes, aping. The Ithaca parents are aping their betters in their efforts to climb the social ladder, just as everyone else is.
"Progressive" karents will eagerly abuse their children for status through masks, jabs, and trans. They will teach blind obedience from EACMSI to Cornell, then wonder why their kids are so unhappy. In a sane world, the school would be shut down and the parents forced into counseling, but we live in a clown world: https://yuribezmenov.substack.com/p/how-to-karent-progressive-ivy-league
The kind of world that urban, educated, wealthy mothers inhabit, where not getting little Amy into the proper elementary school will result in her not going to Harvard.
I can totally understand that. We all inhabit spaces shaped by what those like us believe. For this woman to pull her kids out of that school was a deeply countercultural act (for her culture) and likely extremely hard. It undoubtedly cost her friendships and social standing. There are things that would be deeply countercultural and hard for you too, maybe some that this mom would be able to do easily.
The point is, she's taken a first step into a much wider and more realistic world. That's a good thing, both for her and her kid.
There was an interesting article in the Spectator about a family who pulled their kids out of school and homeschooled them - the father was a Chrysler dealer and his son dropped out of school where he dozed during the class, and began working in the parts department of the dealership - a job he has had for years. His 8 year old sister was also part of the familu Chrysler team - followed her dad to work and had as her job learning customer service. They were both homeschooled due to parents wanting a religious background. Aftere reading this, one can be an atheist and still want to homeschool their kids -
“Eugenics, fascism, communism, all were seen as incredibly progressive by just the sorts of people this article describes.” True, but we are long past an experimental stage when we didn’t know how it all would end. Suffering that fascism and communism brought to millions of people is well documented. Hell, many of us who lived under communist are still alive and would love nothing more than to share the experience. The problem is nobody is interested. The young progressives couldn’t care less about history lessons. And the older generation, like Sanders, is delusional. The old fool became enamored with the Soviet Union on its most corrupted and stagnated stage. As we all learned after the Twitter files revelation, facts do not matter. What matters is who can more effectively brainwash people with propaganda and mental trickery, like the slogans you cannot refuse: follow the science, protect democracy and so on.
We sent our son to Montessori for a few years, and once you are in, it is a difficult decision to leave. You are indoctrinated to think that the Montessori method is somehow superior and uniquely tailored to your child’s way of processing, and you are pitched the benefits of small class sizes.
In the school we went to, we kept our child in the school despite the lack of facilities (no library, no cafeteria, no gym) and despite that class sizes were so small that they were mixing grades together. Eventually, at the end of his last year we found out that our son had been repeatedly dismissed from class for behavioral issues, and was not getting the education or support we were told he was, and the school never informed us. We were furious.
Private schools are not subject to the same standards and laws that public schools are. In a public school, the law mandates that we would have been told about our son being dismissed from class, and it is illegal to dismiss a child from class more than ten times. That finally snapped us out of our delusion that the Montessori school was better than public school. In fact, it was far worse.
Once we had our son in public school, he was much happier. The teachers were better, the facilities were better, and he started making friends. The social aspect was much easier because there were so many kids his age, and they all lived within ten minutes of the school. He wasn’t being dismissed from class either. That turned out to be mostly due to one teacher at the Montessori school who wasn’t qualified to run her class. We also found out that our son was significantly behind other students in his grade, but thankfully he caught up within the first year.
I can’t speak for other Montessori schools, but the one we went to was a scam. It ended up going out of business a few years after we left, which coincided with the head of the school retiring.
“But for fear of angering the administrators of a school they otherwise love”...there are so many psychological intersecting issues here it’s hard to know where to start to break this down. First, what kind of parent can possibly justify the psychological and emotional stunting of their own children in such an environment? Second, it causes one to wonder what sort of group psychosis these so-called educated people are suffering from that they would permit their children to be abused and not call it abuse? finally throughout the Covid emergency it is clear there were some groups of people captured by a mass hysteria that was encouraged and abetted by government policies that forced compliance. It’s almost as if there was a collective Munchausen’s syndrome, operating in this community of elite university types who lost all ability for independent thought and analysis. Shame on them.
Appreciate your feedback and apologies if you found it annoying. I don't comment on The Free Press unless I have something relevant to say. In this case, I wrote an article a year ago that described the exact phenomenon that this post and commenters described. As a father, I get agitated when I see parents and school administrators abusing children. We're all on the same team here, comrades.
Not clear at all that these parents have the ability of independent thought and reasoning. Just so, being academic faculty ( especially in liberal arts subjects) is often connected to the conformity of group think. The popularity of “ post modern “ deconstruction as a philosophy with these types permits no dissent. Emotional reasoning is all they have to face the world.
Bryn Mawr will be out of business in 10 years. Enrollment is dropping like a rock and they just banned their founders name and image from campus (too white)
Just read about the stripping of the founder's name - just unbelievable. Next will be, tearing down historical buildings everywhere because the workers weren't treated or paid fairly or whites were paid more than those of color. When will it stop???
Who are the parents that put up with this abuse of their own children? If they aren’t going to stand up for their children, they’re children are never going to stand up for themselves. But I guess that’s the point, stay in line, do what your told.
The kids will be fully prepared for college. Not to study or think but to act as told. To protest when ordered. And to cancel anyone and anything resembling dissent. Likely most of the parents are already on the conformity train.
I can't wait to read the memoirs of the kids who were masked the most and the longest. It's inevitable that some of these kids will be quite vocal about their personal situations.
There are hundreds of those signs in my small community. They started popping up when Trump was elected, quietly put away, and then everyone pulled them back out again the day after Floyd. Someone in the community facebook group was ordering in bulk for everyone who wanted! Don’t really care what you believe in your house. As you can probably guess, they all had Whitmer and Biden signs up in 2020. And it was the first time in decades my district went democrat.
"The parents who send their children to Elizabeth Ann Clune Montessori School are highly educated people." - Ah, and here is the root of the problem; "highly educated". It is bizarre to think that there has become an almost inverse relationship between advanced educational degrees and common sense or critical thinking. This "group think" seems to be a natural outcome of participation in education sector. By the way, I just took my granddaughter to Disney for a few days, and I got my fill of other people's malignant idea of "child-centered" or what I like to call "child-terrorism".
i have my own theory about this that i regularly voice to my two teen daughters: i think we could actually and easily have a future "handmaids tale" outcome within society but not what the Left were all up in arms about when trump was elected (and what is depicted in the book and the 80's movie and recent tv show) and when they'd cosplay in red capes and white hats during protests. actually, i believe THEY are the ones who will be driving a future handmaid's tale scenario in the next 10-20 years from all the kids who were told they were trans (and were not) and encouraged and rushed through to hormone therapy and surgery, and then add in all the kids who got the COVID shot and boosters. it could very well be the girls and young women who didn't get the COVID shot and boosters (and remained the sex they were born through puberty) who will be able to get pregnant and have an easier time getting pregnant and carrying to term in the future.
michael, i mean't the "future" of the handmaid's tale as in, the premise of the story itself and the place in time it was taking place, not the show on netflix. i will go back and edit my comment for better clarity.
What Pete Buttigieg and his "husband" did to procure children is much closer to The Handmaid's Tale than anything "progressives" could dream up about conservatives.
Dorothy - I appreciate your feedback, apologies if you found it annoying. I don't comment on The Free Press unless I have something relevant to say. In this case, I wrote an article a year ago that described the exact phenomenon that this post and commenters described. As a father, I get agitated when I see parents and school administrators abusing children. We're all on the same team here, comrades. PS: I get 10,000+ steps every day and feel great.
Yuri - i appreciated the first comment but reading the next exact two, I wanted to save you the rolling eyes that we oldsters get when we tell the same story ten times no matter how thrilling it was the first time. In my experience only black preachers can get away with repeating the same thing over and over again and then the congregation all yells AMEN - although if he goes on TOO long, someone in the congregation will yell - BRING IT ON HOME< Brother -
10,000 steps =good for you - I think I read the whole 10,000 business was the work of some Japanese guy who made one of those Fit type watches which he needed to sell so he convinced everyone they needed the watch so they could keept track
I go until I drop - figure that's all I need for the day,
so much for freedom of the press and speech and writing.. you can ignore it cant you? maybe you could go for a walk. just saying. I love Yuri and sub to his substack because I read him here.. thanks Yuri
Bill - I appreciate your feedback and have deleted the excess comments. Your analogy is correct. I don't comment on The Free Press unless I have something relevant to say. In this case, I wrote an article a year ago that described the exact phenomenon that this post and commenters described. As a father, I get agitated when I see parents and school administrators abusing children. We're all on the same team here, comrade.
Anne - I appreciate your feedback, apologies if you found it annoying. I don't comment on The Free Press unless I have something relevant to say. In this case, I wrote an article a year ago that described the exact phenomenon that this post and commenters described. As a father, I get agitated when I see parents and school administrators abusing children. We're all on the same team here, comrades.
That parents would say and accept the following with all of the information available on the harm the control freaks have imposed says it all "I could tolerate most of the stuff—the teachers in N95s and face shields while standing behind plexiglass barriers, the 12 feet of distance for band members, the ban on singing ‘Happy Birthday’ in class. But I just wanted them to end the outdoor masking,” -- How about, yes beat me, but please don't hit me so hard.
Why in heavens name would you subject your child to that? How much freedom are you willing to give up in life? What kind of example will you be in retrospect when your children look back on your willingness to follow idiots? How about you just ignoring science and sacrificing your children's minds and social abilities? Your fear of some obese and socially challenged school administrators who enjoy control because they have low self esteem?
People, wake up and take control of your lives, your children's lives, and your country.
Agree with the absurdity of the parents’ statements. The assumptions about the personal characteristics of the administrators at the school are unjustified. Unless you have actual evidence, these are just ad hominem attacks.
You can tell that the administrators are socially challenged, low self esteem, and obese from the actions described in this article? I am impressed by your insight. Where does one acquire such ability?
I’m very sad for those kids. The parents undoubtedly want their kids to be perceived as the “intellectuals” later in life, much like themselves. In reality, they will likely be imbeciles, just like their parents. So much irony.
Highly educated might better be described as highly competent at sitting down and taking orders, since our education system clearly isn't producing critical thinkers
I just moved to Japan last summer, and enrolled my 8 year old son in the local public elementary. I was a bit dismayed to see that masks were still required, although the government recently declared that masking is now a “personal choice” so many of the kids aren’t wearing them anymore. However, the overwhelming majority of adults I see out and about are still wearing masks, and many of the kids too. Social conformity is an exceptionally strong force here and I can imagine people will continue wearing masks for years to come just out of sheer inertia. It’s a weird situation.
In Japan it’s the norm to wear a mask if you have a cold, etc and has been for a long time. The first time I went there in the mid-90s many people were wearing masks on public transport. I’m not surprised they are still hard-core mask wearers.
As you mentioned there are cultural issues at play. While Americans are on the extreme end of the spectrum for individualism over conformation (well, at least we used to be) Japanese are the opposite. While our hyper individualism has it’s drawbacks, extreme conformity definitely becomes a problem when government is not benevolent.
It will be interesting to see what happens in the future when the next public health crisis rolls around.
This could be the premise of an Arrested Development episode. Completely idiotic. My kids attend a Montessori school in a Boston suburb, and even they've been mask free since 2022.
Sounds like the administration at Elizabeth Ann Clune Montessori School of Ithaca needs deprogramming therapy STAT.
Fade: my intent was to highlight how ridiculous EACMS is by holding my children's school out - not as a beacon - but as a similarly situated school (located in an extremely progressive part of the country) that imposed rigid rules in accordance with public health mandates but that has since walked them back. Unpacked/dumbed-down even further: If Boston Montessori schools can do it, ANY school can!
I can only assume that you don't live in a metro area in New England or on the west coast. And since you seem rather ignorant of Covid reality in my particular neck of the woods, let me enlighten you: short of homeschooling, there was literally no school or daycare center you could send your child to in Boston or around Boston that did not require a mask (for kids 2+). Masks were mandated by the Commonwealth's public health authorities and the Department of Early Education and Care, and if you did not comply, your organization was subject to penalties.
Additional context for you: I am on the Board at the school and used materials published by the Free Press to support my argument for repealing the masking requirement at our school. Happily, not much convincing was necessary. The Board voted to remove the masks at the earliest opportunity (i.e., when the MA EEC lifted its mask requirement for EEC funded programs). Since the regs promulgated by the aforementioned authorities set a floor - not a ceiling - for masking, we could have kept the masking requirement in place, much like EACMS has done, but reason prevailed at my children's school.
This is a silly thing to squabble over, and I debated over whether I should even devote time to a response. But, Fade, you seem rather smug and sanctimonious, and because I like serious people and serious debate on the Free Press, I did you the favor. Hopefully you've learned something.
'But, Fade, you seem rather smug and sanctimonious, and because I like serious people and serious debate on the Free Press, I did you the favor. Hopefully you've learned something."
This might be the most smug and sanctimonious pair of sentences in this entire comment section. LOL.
Nothing grinds my gears more than people who know nothing about you, your family or circumstances telling you what to do and how to do it. The response was definitely worth your time! ;)
So let me get this straight: parents are willingly PAYING $11-$18K a year to stunt their children’s emotional and social growth and cut off much required oxygen to their brains and developing bodies when the rest of the world moved on over a year ago? And they’re ok with this? This is cruelty at its finest and every adult consenting to this torture is complicit in the abuse. Can’t wait for the lawsuits to come 5-10 years from now by these very same children against their adult incarcerators-without a shred of evidence masks offer protection.
By the way, I work in a school and when indoor mask mandates were lifted one year ago, I don’t know of a single teacher who did not breathe a collective sigh of relief. I can’t believe teachers would have advocated to spend their days restrained behind a face diaper and gasping for breath while straining their vocal chords.
It’s shocking this school even has pupils! Shame on everyone! What a joyless way to spend one’s childhood.
Ithaca NY is a bastion of Leftism. Covid was real but the threat has long since passed. As explained by theoretical physicist, UK Professor Rudolf Rigger, Covid produced panic. Rigger coined the term Panicdemic to describe what happened. His essay God Bless The Time Lords (December 2022) which explains the overreaction to this virus is available here.
Part of the answer lies in the rise of the bureaucracy inside colleges and universities. There are many universities that have as many administrators as undergraduate students. We tend to look at that as merely a cost issue, but in reality all those administrators are there for control purposes. For several generations within universities there has been a goal to pursue progressive ideology by hiring from a select group that is mostly female and steeped in the fashions of post-modern thought. When I worked as a trial consultant we offered this as "breathing your own fumes" or in other words, an echo chamber of thought bouncing around in ways that didn't allow for alternatives to be considered. At the modern universities, because of the differing disciplines, little cross-breeding occurred. Physics and Engineering never talked to Social Scientist. They found that students could be recruited easily into the various social science and education departments as long as they stripped away advanced math requirements (ironically it is Sociology that has benefited from the computer technologies/statistical software packages that are the foundation of understanding of the social order), in favor of qualitative methods and looking at soft exercise of power which is the central thought of post modernism. There have been literally tens of thousands of PHD thesis looking deeply at the feelings and language employed of various groups without any true connection to the world. Lived experience is now king in much of the academy.
So you ask how is it possible that intelligent people lose sight of empirical reality? They have been given the wrong set of tools. Reflexive/emotions/qualitative are kings in the academy, while empirical/positivism/quantitative is pushed to the side for the vast majority of university students. I hate it that this has happened. But, I saw it first hand as I was in graduate school in the 1990s. And now it is about battling ideologies instead of a search for the truth being enforced by an army of administrators.
I can tell you almost exactly how this would go in most universities.
Person A: I think we should end our COVID masking policies
Person B: Maybe. Let's form a study group to come up with a recommendation
SIX MONTHS LATER
Person B: Good news. The study group has determined that masking is no longer necessary. It's going to the Administrative Rules committee for final approval when they meet next quarter.
THREE MONTHS LATER
Rules Committee: We agree with the study group, but Legal needs to weigh in to make sure it's not causing us any additional liability.
THREE MONTHS LATER
Legal: There's no legal issues with removing masks. Once Information Technology can update the staff tracking systems we can remove the requirement.
Information Technology: Nobody told us about this. We'll have to research what systems are going to be affected.
SIX MONTHS LATER
Information Technology: OK, our systems are updated and ready to handle this rule change.
Communications: Great. We'll come up with some messaging to get the word out.
THREE MONTHS LATER
Communications: OK, the communication is ready
Deans Office: Great...we'll have a few changes once the Dean is done with their review
This encapsulates higher education to a tee. My 20yr old engineering major is trying to take a class this summer at Rutgers (does not attend Rutgers). Class is 100% online and begins May 22nd. Rutgers vax policy has changed - you no longer need to be vaxed, but it doesn't take affect until May 15. They won't let him register for the class because he doesn't have a booster (has first 2 shots). They told him he could either wait to register on May 15 and hope the class is still open or get a booster. He is now taking the class at a community college, refuses to give Rutgers one cent of his money.
The only explanation for their insanity I can conjure is that it is destabilizing. And destabilizing the existing society in order to create their Brave New World has always enticed these narcissistic morons with god complexes.
It provided the expert bureaucratic class, a creature of the progressive left, with very tempting a new source of power and influence, particularly over their ideological opponents and the broader population. It was also very sciencey, something they use often to beat over the head of their ideological opponents.
So, my working answer is more power plus the ability to weaponize their mandates against opponents that, ideologically, are more skeptical of mass mandates and central control. There was also an election to think about, which perhaps explains the political leadership’s sudden 180 on Covid.
It snowballed when organizations saw that some measures like masking or vaccination could be used to publicly bully those opponents through clever (but false) rhetoric and also purge them from within. The Feds came along soon enough when it became clear the permanent regime class was going to use this event for its own purposes. Most members of course are followers so they went along from within organizations where group think is the norm.
I would finish by comparing today to the old Roman Empire. The more power centralizes and sniffs its own scent, surrounding itself with sycophants, the more degenerate the ruling class becomes. It’s human nature it would appear.
Today’s ruling class is deeply unserious. The rhetoric on gender, China, Ukraine, Covid, etc all betray a fictional worldview where managing perception and enforcing conformity is all that matters to them.
Rome when from Augustus to Nero. We are seeing the same thing here. They don’t see how actively harmful all this is to their own followers. Degenerates never do. I reminded of a couple Romanian dictators of recent memory.
“I have yet to see a good explanation as to why the LEFT has completely lost its mind”.
My theory is the LEFT is comprised mostly of kids no one really cared to be around, the “hangers on” so to speak. To be tolerated they mimicked whatever the popular kids said or did, even if it went against their own beliefs or intuition. Eventually, what little sense of self they ever possessed is lost entirely. Truth, honesty, even morality become expendable to preserve membership in and survival of their click, tribe, cult or however you want to characterize it. I’m reminded of the German citizens located in villages located just outside the Nazi death camps, who despite the stench of burning corpses denied knowing anything of their existence.
We are now seeing how vicious and determined the left can be in suppressing any dissent, even from within its own ranks to become and remain dominant. There was a time when the US government fought against such tyranny. Now it is imposing it.
My lefty friends have a narrative that Progressive politics is all about Caring. Caring for the underserved, underrepresented, underpaid, whatever. Their Covid views are an extension of this. To them, masking (even in 2023, among fully-vaccinated people) is a sign that they Care for everyone around them. And if anyone objects, it is clearly because the objector just doesn't Care enough about other people. I periodically bring up actual medical news to them (Cochrane, Mayo Clinic), and in return get a stink eye and a response that I'm being uncaring. At this point, I'm about to take bets on how many years it goes on.
Marxist "woke" is the lipstick on a pig named totalitarian finance. You might be interested in browsing the EU sponsored Lindsay/Furedi YouTube lecture. This article is a report on the the "trickle down" damage of the class war on the American psyche.
The only appropriate response to these parents is laughter and derision. Can it really be that these people represent the educational elite? Sheep? Or are they they the polite and polished Eloi from the Time Machine waiting for their individual call to servitude?
Another example that the intersection of intelligence and education in a Venn diagram is very small.
What is with the Free Press and your ability to find terrible parents? Literally every one of these people who kept their kids in that "school", what, for the intimate atmosphere and whatnot (was that supposed to be a joke?). They paid for it. Its not some public school with layers of state bureaucracy behind it. It is a small private school and they PAID TO BE THERE. If they were too timid/stupid/lazy to vote with their feet i can accept that - at least its honest.
I am amazed they have 1 student, let alone full classrooms. But if covid taught me anything over the past 3 years is just how deeply some societies actually hate their kids.
Timid parents are one of the greatest threats to the future of our country.
"Progressive" karents will eagerly abuse their children for status through masks, jabs, and trans. They will teach blind obedience from EACMSI to Cornell, then wonder why their kids are so unhappy. In a sane world, the school would be shut down and the parents forced into counseling, but we live in a clown world: https://yuribezmenov.substack.com/p/how-to-karent-progressive-ivy-league
It’s child abuse...hyper narcissistic Munchausen’s by proxy married to craven cowardice.
Pithy, good job, Glenda. I like your style 😃
Spot on!
But, hey, it's liberal and progressive, and therefore has to be really good!
Spot on Re: munchausen’s by proxy analogy (Also known as Factitious Disorder imposed on another) a disorder (usually a parent or care giver) acts as if the child he or she is caring for has a physical or mental illness ) and perhaps the Covid protocols gave many parents assurance that their children would be protected from harm?
And now a bunch of those fools have hopped on the Trans fad. Parents seeing trans tendencies in 2- 9 year olds and then initiating "treatment" are surely practicing munchausen’s by proxy and should be jailed. One mass panic / hysteria after another. Good Lord!!
Progressives? Just like the left is not liberal, they were never progressive. We shouldn't call them liberals because they aren't and for the same reason we should not call them progressives.
The entire west coast and the northeastern states like lemmings, slavishly follow whatever BS the Democrats/Marxists lefts put out. They march lock step to the beat of the left's drum.
They should be called what they really are, tyrants. Think of all the things the left/woke/PC hates and tries to destroy. If that isn't tyranny, I don't know what is. So stop calling them progressives and call them what they really are, tyrants.
God bless the Democrats/Marxists. What next? Gulags?
1930s
Soviet Communists German Socialists
2000s
American Democrats
If i could drill just one fact into the skull of every American, it is that the Nazi Party only dropped the Communist LABEL because the brand was already starting to go majorly bad in Europe (famines, gulags, pogroms anyone?). They dropped the LABEL, they kept the murderous ideology. They "nationalized" industry, and subordinated every interest and every individual to the Reich ("for the greater good").
The Nazi party were Communists, they even used the hammer / sickle emblem for a time. Nazis = Communists.
I sure do wish this fact was more widely known, but sadly the "left / right spectrum" non sequitor confuses & obscures it.
I'm not sure I'd call Hitler a communist as he didn't nationalize all industry, but he was certainly a leftist collectivist which is pretty much the same thing. Nazis being the extreme of the right is just a well sold lie to scare the low info crowd.
And Canadian Liberals.
Logically-yes
The corruption that abounds in these one-party political entities costs the taxpayers billions every year.
One worker in my state logged more hours of overtime than he did of straight time one year. Yep...Slap on the wrist
I like the term Lemmings better. But yes tyrant fools. Could this be a human version of the unlimited growth population experiments in rats? Is this foolishness most prevalent in our highest density population areas? Oh and the truth is, Lemmings are not so foolish and do not rush to their destruction except in legend and Disney movies.
I know that lemmings don't jump into the sea but it is still a good word to use to define group think.
amen
I don't know why these parents are all upset about stupid repressive rules and mandates. The parents are told what to think and say by the woke/pc left and the professors and administrators of the left wing universities they all attended. They all marched to the Democrat drum Joe Biden beat with his unconstitutional mandates.
So why be upset with the dictators that run their very expensive, very elitist, far left school? Hell, I bet every one of these parents march like the glassy eyed lemmings they are into the voting booths and vote straight Democrat/Marxist ticket.
So why be upset by what through acquiescence they have all created.
Sadly, my experience over the years is that in the end, when given the chance Republicans fail us nearly as badly. It is a difference by degrees, which I suppose is better than nothing.
If you vote for anyone but an incumbent over a number of years, you may have a chance of flushing out the really corrupt, leaving the only somewhat corrupt scratching their noses trying to figure out how to increase their shares of power.
A d the one who did not has been hounded unmercifully.
"karents" - good one!
Sadly Yuri, I have this type of elitist in my own family.
Same in my family!
Accurate. Leftists are self-obsessed totalitarians and their kids are just props. I do wonder what would happen if Ukraine's Zelensky asked US Democrats specifically for volunteers, would they send their kids?
No. Strictly other folks kids. Sa.e as they spend other people's money.
Yes. When did parents stop being their children's protectors? I would step in front of a train to protect my children, so I will certainly say no to a school administrator, a doctor, or the child themselves when needed. Parents (and people more generally in modernity) are afraid of all the wrong things. Fear the corruption of your soul, not the loss of a social group.
But in their mind, those parents DO indeed protect their children. Sadly, they are protected from growing up, from developing skills necessary to function as independent adults. Child abuse on a mass scale, aided and abetted by "caring parents".
Indeed - bold parents are likely domestic terrorists and investigated by Randi Weingarten and Merrick Garland.
Considering that having children *at all* is against Woke principles (bad for the climate and racist if you're white), I don't find it surprising that Woke parents would be bad parents.
Shocking to read it in your concise wording - but probably true.
I was scornfully called a "breeder" as long ago as the mid 90s. My female professors in grad school in the early 00s generally had a child (seldom more than one, and born toward the end of their child-bearing years), but I always sensed that they felt guilty for having reproduced, contrary to their elevated philosophies.
Celia, this is off topic. Just when you thought the left couldn't get any more perverse and thought mutilating children was as far as they would go, watch this, the new frontier of woke insanity:
https://www.facebook.com/FreedomProjectUSA/videos/the-new-frontier-of-woke-insanity-transableism/502740532038882/
Whatever happened to the hypocritic oath, "First do no harm."? Any doctor who see people mentioned in the above video should be sending them to a shrink, not pulling out his or her hacksaw.
This proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that Democrats are nutz, difunctionally, blown out of the water crazy,
The invincible ignorance of liberals. Can you imagine what this faculty is teaching the children? Fear 101.
"Can you imagine what this faculty is teaching the children?"
I don’t mean to sound Pollyannish, but it’s possible the past few years will spawn a new generation of Libertarians. I’m encouraged by the fact that the students developed their own sign language. One hopes it included the symbol for “fuck you”.
I hope I live long enough to see these kids (along with those “transitioned before legal age) divorce and sue their parents.
I’m sorry to say but the problem is the reverse; not enough of them will be social enough for marriage or healthy enough to outlive you. 😢
What? No round stickers with the slogan virtue signaling for getting the vaccine? What about a sticker for kids that says, "You taught me to speak; hear my voice."
There are plenty of options for that one already.
Very funny
I do believe that particular hand sign is already covered. 😊😊
😂😂😂
I think that may yet be the outcome too. Kids rebel against what the parents hold dear.
That’s just it. These people have proven themselves to be stupid. Why would you want stupid people teaching your kids?
If these children were instead being raised Mennonite or something similar, Leftists like these would lament their cultish brainwashing.
My mother is still a member of an Old Order Mennonite church and they did absolutely nothing regarding Covid. It is only a congregation of a few hundred but I don't know of anyone who had Covid, let alone became very ill or died.
Good point.
they make fun of religion all the time
Even NASA does nothing bold any more. Can you imagine the cognitive dissonance at the space agency?
https://spectator.org/astronaut-woke-nasa/
Well there goes my plan to escape to space.
Yes. And compliance 101.
Compliance has been taught for a long time. I graduated from High School in the 1980s . Because some students had abused the privildge of being able to walk off campus at lunch, by the time I was in High School it was no longer an option. One transgression by one person leads to a new rule that takes away a little more liberty... over and over again.
There are also the parents who bring their young children to bizarre events like "Drag Queen Story Hours". It is a form of sexual exploitation of minors.
Covid taught me that the overwhelming majority of us are cowardly conformists, especially those who are highly educated and supposedly intelligent. Not that many free thinkers lol
But the question is how did we get to that point in a generation or maybe two? What happened?
"But the question is how did we get to that point in a generation or maybe two? What happened?"
Funny enough, I blame Donald J. Trump. He never in a million years should have given Faucci a stage, never mind a DAILY one. He never EVER should have agreed to "two weeks to slow the spread". He acted based on opinion polls, and missed a chance at true leadership. Instead, Sweden (SWEDEN!!) had to carry the mantle of sanity.
And I say this as someone who generally supports most of what Trump did or tried to do.
I agree about Fauci.
Yes but these parents are Democrats so to them it is very important for their kids to continue receiving a robust education on anal beads, slavery, doggystyle, and apartheid before finally becoming transvestites.
No price is too high!!
(I hope ever Democrat’s child got the maximum number of shots)
Me too. Let's move on without them. We need brave people unwilling to give up our freedom for safety. These cowards will be left behind.
Think about the people you still see wearing masks today: overwhelmingly urban women. probably college educated and likely progressives.
The way to sell a product to a mom is to convince her that any alternative will make her child stupid or dead. Those are the urban, educated mom's worst fears. And this hits both: send your child here because we're a great school that puts your kid on the track to Harvard, and also because our measures will ensure your child never gets a disease that could kill them.
I agree with your assessment that they're terrible parents. This is child abuse at this point. But why is the school doing it? It's profitable.
Some of it though is acceptance of the concept of the village raising the child. Acceptance of that ultimately means ceding parental rights and responsibilities.
Yes, yes, yes, yes, YES.
Ithaca has a _fabulous_ public school system, so it’s always been unclear to me why any parent living there would send their kids to private school except as a snob thing—God forbid that the offspring of the professor share a blackboard with the offspring of the janitor, right?
But if they don’t like the school’s policies, they should yank their kids out—and save $11,000-$18,000 a year.
What are the odds that all 220 of the kids at this school turn out to be serial killers...
Not sure about that, but I think a 25% "trans" rate is likely. Because that gives a lot of social capital to their craven parents.
Like most social contagion, hopefully the trans movements fades away. Praying it does…
Yes yes and yes. Stupid school to be sure (something tells me if they had one student left and he was alone on the playground, he would still be masked) but the parents are infinitely stupider. This is the stuff of nightmares and horror movies. The “my body my choice” “follow the science” crowd have revealed themselves to be the highest order of Sheeple. Shame on them.
Wonder where these parents fit on the political scale? Revolutionary/totalitarian left... or conservative/libertarian right?
They are leftists / Democrats (redundant). 100%.
"Because of her complaints, she said her kids almost got kicked out. After she begged, Stein said, the school let them stay."
So this parent is paying $11,000 to $18,000 a year per child to have her kids screwed up and taught horrible lessons for life, and then when they almost get kicked out she panics. What the fuck kind of crazy world is this?
Right? My brain hurt reading this article.
It boggles the mind. Masked children is one of the saddest things I've seen and yet these wonks embrace it.
My three-year-old granddaughter is full of thoughts and ideas, many of which we struggle to understand because her teachers and peers were fully masked (as required in Washington State by an uber liberal governor) for month after month during the pandemic. This at the very juncture when she was developing her language skills. Communicating with her is an enduring reminder of the idiocy of the mask-all-children policy that, in some cases, proved far more debilitating than the pandemic itself.
I cannot like this but thank you for sharing this. I am so sorry and it was so obvious to so many who had ever raised a child. My bet is that speech therapists and pathologists will become a growth industry.
In my city, I konw speech pathologists are quite busy now.
I’m sorry to hear this. And I am curious - would you mind adding a specific example of her communication?
Girard, Girard everywhere.. We're all just dumb ass apes, aping. The Ithaca parents are aping their betters in their efforts to climb the social ladder, just as everyone else is.
It was always crazy for children to be forced to wear them. By their schools or by their parents.
"Progressive" karents will eagerly abuse their children for status through masks, jabs, and trans. They will teach blind obedience from EACMSI to Cornell, then wonder why their kids are so unhappy. In a sane world, the school would be shut down and the parents forced into counseling, but we live in a clown world: https://yuribezmenov.substack.com/p/how-to-karent-progressive-ivy-league
This is brilliant. “Karents” is now part of my regular vocabulary…. Wondering what the process is to have it added to Webster’s?
Bravo
Worse, she is a doctor.
Well so much for our "medical establishment."
The kind of world that urban, educated, wealthy mothers inhabit, where not getting little Amy into the proper elementary school will result in her not going to Harvard.
I can totally understand that. We all inhabit spaces shaped by what those like us believe. For this woman to pull her kids out of that school was a deeply countercultural act (for her culture) and likely extremely hard. It undoubtedly cost her friendships and social standing. There are things that would be deeply countercultural and hard for you too, maybe some that this mom would be able to do easily.
The point is, she's taken a first step into a much wider and more realistic world. That's a good thing, both for her and her kid.
Many colleges are still requiring masks and vaccinations, and they cost far more than $11-18K. Students are falling in line to attend.
There was an interesting article in the Spectator about a family who pulled their kids out of school and homeschooled them - the father was a Chrysler dealer and his son dropped out of school where he dozed during the class, and began working in the parts department of the dealership - a job he has had for years. His 8 year old sister was also part of the familu Chrysler team - followed her dad to work and had as her job learning customer service. They were both homeschooled due to parents wanting a religious background. Aftere reading this, one can be an atheist and still want to homeschool their kids -
well just one more good reason to opt out of the University / College route.
*falling in to attend virtually!!
It’s a world where progressives are currently in control, that pendulum has swung.
I’m sure they all feel we are in the middle of a Great Leap Forward, and possibly even a cultural Revolution.
In my view, a disease is metastasizing through civilization.
Eugenics, fascism, communism, all were seen as incredibly progressive by just the sorts of people this article describes.
“Eugenics, fascism, communism, all were seen as incredibly progressive by just the sorts of people this article describes.” True, but we are long past an experimental stage when we didn’t know how it all would end. Suffering that fascism and communism brought to millions of people is well documented. Hell, many of us who lived under communist are still alive and would love nothing more than to share the experience. The problem is nobody is interested. The young progressives couldn’t care less about history lessons. And the older generation, like Sanders, is delusional. The old fool became enamored with the Soviet Union on its most corrupted and stagnated stage. As we all learned after the Twitter files revelation, facts do not matter. What matters is who can more effectively brainwash people with propaganda and mental trickery, like the slogans you cannot refuse: follow the science, protect democracy and so on.
If you tried to sing praises of fascism you’d never work again.
Yet our education system is full of avowed communists, an ideology that killed far more people than fascism, and that’s A-ok.
They should be chased thru the streets
The stifling atmosphere of conformity and status anxiety in which so many of our "successful professionals" live never ceases to amaze.
like the in law who is afraid his mom will make "waves" at the nursing home..."oh, no, if she gets kicked out where will she go ?"
We sent our son to Montessori for a few years, and once you are in, it is a difficult decision to leave. You are indoctrinated to think that the Montessori method is somehow superior and uniquely tailored to your child’s way of processing, and you are pitched the benefits of small class sizes.
In the school we went to, we kept our child in the school despite the lack of facilities (no library, no cafeteria, no gym) and despite that class sizes were so small that they were mixing grades together. Eventually, at the end of his last year we found out that our son had been repeatedly dismissed from class for behavioral issues, and was not getting the education or support we were told he was, and the school never informed us. We were furious.
Private schools are not subject to the same standards and laws that public schools are. In a public school, the law mandates that we would have been told about our son being dismissed from class, and it is illegal to dismiss a child from class more than ten times. That finally snapped us out of our delusion that the Montessori school was better than public school. In fact, it was far worse.
Once we had our son in public school, he was much happier. The teachers were better, the facilities were better, and he started making friends. The social aspect was much easier because there were so many kids his age, and they all lived within ten minutes of the school. He wasn’t being dismissed from class either. That turned out to be mostly due to one teacher at the Montessori school who wasn’t qualified to run her class. We also found out that our son was significantly behind other students in his grade, but thankfully he caught up within the first year.
I can’t speak for other Montessori schools, but the one we went to was a scam. It ended up going out of business a few years after we left, which coincided with the head of the school retiring.
I think these parents are MISSING A FEW BRAIN CELLS.
“But for fear of angering the administrators of a school they otherwise love”...there are so many psychological intersecting issues here it’s hard to know where to start to break this down. First, what kind of parent can possibly justify the psychological and emotional stunting of their own children in such an environment? Second, it causes one to wonder what sort of group psychosis these so-called educated people are suffering from that they would permit their children to be abused and not call it abuse? finally throughout the Covid emergency it is clear there were some groups of people captured by a mass hysteria that was encouraged and abetted by government policies that forced compliance. It’s almost as if there was a collective Munchausen’s syndrome, operating in this community of elite university types who lost all ability for independent thought and analysis. Shame on them.
Stockholm Syndrome.
Oh of course. It was tickling in the back of my mind but didn’t pop out on my keyboard. 😂
Collective Munchausen works too.
I understand you want to promote your Substack, but please quit posting this same comment multiple times. It's annoying.
Agreed. It makes me less likely to click on it too.
Appreciate your feedback and apologies if you found it annoying. I don't comment on The Free Press unless I have something relevant to say. In this case, I wrote an article a year ago that described the exact phenomenon that this post and commenters described. As a father, I get agitated when I see parents and school administrators abusing children. We're all on the same team here, comrades.
I’m amazed that people who are otherwise smart and successful showed just how pathetically stupid they are throughout the past several years.
I think we all need to re-evaluate what smart and successful means.
Not clear at all that these parents have the ability of independent thought and reasoning. Just so, being academic faculty ( especially in liberal arts subjects) is often connected to the conformity of group think. The popularity of “ post modern “ deconstruction as a philosophy with these types permits no dissent. Emotional reasoning is all they have to face the world.
How else are their kids going to get into Harvard or Bryn Mawr.
Bryn Mawr will be out of business in 10 years. Enrollment is dropping like a rock and they just banned their founders name and image from campus (too white)
Just read about the stripping of the founder's name - just unbelievable. Next will be, tearing down historical buildings everywhere because the workers weren't treated or paid fairly or whites were paid more than those of color. When will it stop???
Shame shame shame on them!
Honestly you've hit the bullseye here so well, you should go on a speaking tour!
That would last about five minutes, until I took a switch to the first heckler.
Who are the parents that put up with this abuse of their own children? If they aren’t going to stand up for their children, they’re children are never going to stand up for themselves. But I guess that’s the point, stay in line, do what your told.
The kids will be fully prepared for college. Not to study or think but to act as told. To protest when ordered. And to cancel anyone and anything resembling dissent. Likely most of the parents are already on the conformity train.
Yes....that is happening every day...on campuses across the country.....protesting and canceling.
Prof was, of course, being facetious. And two of you fell into his trap. lol
I wonder how our dear prof treats students who don't regurgitate his skewed narrative.
I think we know.
No, I wasn't. It's an epidemic. That's all I see everywhere, everyday.
Protesting and canceling.
Dr Binary is back. All or nothing, it is.
Yes, because that certainly does not fit in with the ethos of this discussion board.
If even you are raising a voice of protest that might be a small ray of hope and progress.
I know. There's constant protesting. Happeing right outside my window right now.
More like the Tragedy train.
You nailed it Michael
I can't wait to read the memoirs of the kids who were masked the most and the longest. It's inevitable that some of these kids will be quite vocal about their personal situations.
and they will know the code words , equity , consensus , indigenous, systemic, and how to use them
they are the parents that have we believe in science banners on the lawn
And believe the world will end in 10 years and men can get pregnant.
pretty much , throw a coexist sticker on the ev and that's seals it
Anyone who uses the phrase "believe in science" doesn't understand what science is.
There are hundreds of those signs in my small community. They started popping up when Trump was elected, quietly put away, and then everyone pulled them back out again the day after Floyd. Someone in the community facebook group was ordering in bulk for everyone who wanted! Don’t really care what you believe in your house. As you can probably guess, they all had Whitmer and Biden signs up in 2020. And it was the first time in decades my district went democrat.
I kind of want to make a random, apolitical version as a parody.
IN THIS HOUSE WE BELIEVE
- Frutopia should return to the beverage market
- High school is too old to trick-or-treat
- The latest iPhone is overrated
- Han shot first
I have been thinking about parodies too, but I want to make fun of the people who made the originals. So not fully apolitical.
"In this house, we don't even all believe the same things" might be up there.
I like the one we saw on the east coast while walking, something about climate change, and the house had 2 giant SUVs in front of it.
That’s typical
As a mother and stepmom of 4 and grandmother of 10, I feel I have the street cred to state one hopeful fact: Kids Rebel.
Since Ithica is close, probably many are faculty and staff at the college like the one that was mentioned.
Exactly. I can't believe these parents. I am not a violent person, but these parents make me consider being violent...with them. lol
You mean "moms." Behind every "trans" kid, there is a "supportive and affirming" mom.
With zero parental instinct on what is inherently best for their own children. So disconnected.
Letting the village raise their children.
"The parents who send their children to Elizabeth Ann Clune Montessori School are highly educated people." - Ah, and here is the root of the problem; "highly educated". It is bizarre to think that there has become an almost inverse relationship between advanced educational degrees and common sense or critical thinking. This "group think" seems to be a natural outcome of participation in education sector. By the way, I just took my granddaughter to Disney for a few days, and I got my fill of other people's malignant idea of "child-centered" or what I like to call "child-terrorism".
Disney is Diabolical. The devil of delusion.
Brilliant article.
This seems more like the plot of a dystopian film than an actual school. That or a cult. Absolutely bizarre.
And we are lectured that the handmaids tale is something to worry about actually happening!
i have my own theory about this that i regularly voice to my two teen daughters: i think we could actually and easily have a future "handmaids tale" outcome within society but not what the Left were all up in arms about when trump was elected (and what is depicted in the book and the 80's movie and recent tv show) and when they'd cosplay in red capes and white hats during protests. actually, i believe THEY are the ones who will be driving a future handmaid's tale scenario in the next 10-20 years from all the kids who were told they were trans (and were not) and encouraged and rushed through to hormone therapy and surgery, and then add in all the kids who got the COVID shot and boosters. it could very well be the girls and young women who didn't get the COVID shot and boosters (and remained the sex they were born through puberty) who will be able to get pregnant and have an easier time getting pregnant and carrying to term in the future.
I am looking forward to the Netflix show. Hopefully there will be some accountability in the future
michael, i mean't the "future" of the handmaid's tale as in, the premise of the story itself and the place in time it was taking place, not the show on netflix. i will go back and edit my comment for better clarity.
I was joking. Your prediction might come true, hence the show
What Pete Buttigieg and his "husband" did to procure children is much closer to The Handmaid's Tale than anything "progressives" could dream up about conservatives.
Why not the two for one special?
Please stop - we have already read your words of wisdom MANY times. Maybe you could go for a walk.
Dorothy - I appreciate your feedback, apologies if you found it annoying. I don't comment on The Free Press unless I have something relevant to say. In this case, I wrote an article a year ago that described the exact phenomenon that this post and commenters described. As a father, I get agitated when I see parents and school administrators abusing children. We're all on the same team here, comrades. PS: I get 10,000+ steps every day and feel great.
Yuri - i appreciated the first comment but reading the next exact two, I wanted to save you the rolling eyes that we oldsters get when we tell the same story ten times no matter how thrilling it was the first time. In my experience only black preachers can get away with repeating the same thing over and over again and then the congregation all yells AMEN - although if he goes on TOO long, someone in the congregation will yell - BRING IT ON HOME< Brother -
10,000 steps =good for you - I think I read the whole 10,000 business was the work of some Japanese guy who made one of those Fit type watches which he needed to sell so he convinced everyone they needed the watch so they could keept track
I go until I drop - figure that's all I need for the day,
so much for freedom of the press and speech and writing.. you can ignore it cant you? maybe you could go for a walk. just saying. I love Yuri and sub to his substack because I read him here.. thanks Yuri
I’m with you Dorothy. To me he is no different than Democrat politicians with the bullhorns in Tennessee.
Bill - I appreciate your feedback and have deleted the excess comments. Your analogy is correct. I don't comment on The Free Press unless I have something relevant to say. In this case, I wrote an article a year ago that described the exact phenomenon that this post and commenters described. As a father, I get agitated when I see parents and school administrators abusing children. We're all on the same team here, comrade.
I was planning to circle back and read what you had to say, but now, never mind.
Anne - I appreciate your feedback, apologies if you found it annoying. I don't comment on The Free Press unless I have something relevant to say. In this case, I wrote an article a year ago that described the exact phenomenon that this post and commenters described. As a father, I get agitated when I see parents and school administrators abusing children. We're all on the same team here, comrades.
That parents would say and accept the following with all of the information available on the harm the control freaks have imposed says it all "I could tolerate most of the stuff—the teachers in N95s and face shields while standing behind plexiglass barriers, the 12 feet of distance for band members, the ban on singing ‘Happy Birthday’ in class. But I just wanted them to end the outdoor masking,” -- How about, yes beat me, but please don't hit me so hard.
Why in heavens name would you subject your child to that? How much freedom are you willing to give up in life? What kind of example will you be in retrospect when your children look back on your willingness to follow idiots? How about you just ignoring science and sacrificing your children's minds and social abilities? Your fear of some obese and socially challenged school administrators who enjoy control because they have low self esteem?
People, wake up and take control of your lives, your children's lives, and your country.
Agree with the absurdity of the parents’ statements. The assumptions about the personal characteristics of the administrators at the school are unjustified. Unless you have actual evidence, these are just ad hominem attacks.
The administrators' actions clearly speak to their character.
You can tell that the administrators are socially challenged, low self esteem, and obese from the actions described in this article? I am impressed by your insight. Where does one acquire such ability?
Of course not. None of those things are a part of “character”. Rest easy, you don’t need to chase the elusive straw man you set up.
You might enjoy Coleman Hughes interview with journalist Batya Ungar-Sargon on YouTube.
I’m very sad for those kids. The parents undoubtedly want their kids to be perceived as the “intellectuals” later in life, much like themselves. In reality, they will likely be imbeciles, just like their parents. So much irony.
I don’t think I’ve ever read about so many stupid “highly educated” people.
Highly educated might better be described as highly competent at sitting down and taking orders, since our education system clearly isn't producing critical thinkers
I just moved to Japan last summer, and enrolled my 8 year old son in the local public elementary. I was a bit dismayed to see that masks were still required, although the government recently declared that masking is now a “personal choice” so many of the kids aren’t wearing them anymore. However, the overwhelming majority of adults I see out and about are still wearing masks, and many of the kids too. Social conformity is an exceptionally strong force here and I can imagine people will continue wearing masks for years to come just out of sheer inertia. It’s a weird situation.
In Japan it’s the norm to wear a mask if you have a cold, etc and has been for a long time. The first time I went there in the mid-90s many people were wearing masks on public transport. I’m not surprised they are still hard-core mask wearers.
As you mentioned there are cultural issues at play. While Americans are on the extreme end of the spectrum for individualism over conformation (well, at least we used to be) Japanese are the opposite. While our hyper individualism has it’s drawbacks, extreme conformity definitely becomes a problem when government is not benevolent.
It will be interesting to see what happens in the future when the next public health crisis rolls around.
Agreed. Masks in Japan (and other places, like Hong Kong) were commonly seen before all this covid mess.
My daughter lives in South Korea. They wear masks often because of yellow dust blowing over from China. I don’t want to know what it contains.
“Highly educated” has now come to mean “deliberately obtuse” wherever I encounter it.
Or willfully ignorant
This could be the premise of an Arrested Development episode. Completely idiotic. My kids attend a Montessori school in a Boston suburb, and even they've been mask free since 2022.
Sounds like the administration at Elizabeth Ann Clune Montessori School of Ithaca needs deprogramming therapy STAT.
Since 2022? And you’re bragging about that? I would never have let my daughters go to a school that forced masking.
Shame on you for not pulling your kid.
Fade: my intent was to highlight how ridiculous EACMS is by holding my children's school out - not as a beacon - but as a similarly situated school (located in an extremely progressive part of the country) that imposed rigid rules in accordance with public health mandates but that has since walked them back. Unpacked/dumbed-down even further: If Boston Montessori schools can do it, ANY school can!
I can only assume that you don't live in a metro area in New England or on the west coast. And since you seem rather ignorant of Covid reality in my particular neck of the woods, let me enlighten you: short of homeschooling, there was literally no school or daycare center you could send your child to in Boston or around Boston that did not require a mask (for kids 2+). Masks were mandated by the Commonwealth's public health authorities and the Department of Early Education and Care, and if you did not comply, your organization was subject to penalties.
Additional context for you: I am on the Board at the school and used materials published by the Free Press to support my argument for repealing the masking requirement at our school. Happily, not much convincing was necessary. The Board voted to remove the masks at the earliest opportunity (i.e., when the MA EEC lifted its mask requirement for EEC funded programs). Since the regs promulgated by the aforementioned authorities set a floor - not a ceiling - for masking, we could have kept the masking requirement in place, much like EACMS has done, but reason prevailed at my children's school.
This is a silly thing to squabble over, and I debated over whether I should even devote time to a response. But, Fade, you seem rather smug and sanctimonious, and because I like serious people and serious debate on the Free Press, I did you the favor. Hopefully you've learned something.
'But, Fade, you seem rather smug and sanctimonious, and because I like serious people and serious debate on the Free Press, I did you the favor. Hopefully you've learned something."
This might be the most smug and sanctimonious pair of sentences in this entire comment section. LOL.
Did my best! But at least I had the courtesy of knowing what I was talking about.
Nothing grinds my gears more than people who know nothing about you, your family or circumstances telling you what to do and how to do it. The response was definitely worth your time! ;)
Thank you!! You get me! :)
Outdoor masking is one of the more ridiculous restrictions along with forced vaccinations that don’t prevent anything.
So let me get this straight: parents are willingly PAYING $11-$18K a year to stunt their children’s emotional and social growth and cut off much required oxygen to their brains and developing bodies when the rest of the world moved on over a year ago? And they’re ok with this? This is cruelty at its finest and every adult consenting to this torture is complicit in the abuse. Can’t wait for the lawsuits to come 5-10 years from now by these very same children against their adult incarcerators-without a shred of evidence masks offer protection.
By the way, I work in a school and when indoor mask mandates were lifted one year ago, I don’t know of a single teacher who did not breathe a collective sigh of relief. I can’t believe teachers would have advocated to spend their days restrained behind a face diaper and gasping for breath while straining their vocal chords.
It’s shocking this school even has pupils! Shame on everyone! What a joyless way to spend one’s childhood.
To be fair, they are willing to pay that much to keep their kids out of government school and its 'diversity benefits.'
I’m going out on a limb here - those particular parents fully support DEI etc. For other people. That’s always the way of the elitist.
Ithaca NY is a bastion of Leftism. Covid was real but the threat has long since passed. As explained by theoretical physicist, UK Professor Rudolf Rigger, Covid produced panic. Rigger coined the term Panicdemic to describe what happened. His essay God Bless The Time Lords (December 2022) which explains the overreaction to this virus is available here.
https://rudolphrigger.substack.com/p/god-bless-the-time-lords?utm_source=%2Fsearch%2FThank%2520Goodness%2520For%2520The%2520Time%2520Lords&utm_medium=reader2
I have yet to see a good explanation as to why the LEFT has completely lost its mind. And no, a one line snark from an illiterate won’t satisfy me.
Part of the answer lies in the rise of the bureaucracy inside colleges and universities. There are many universities that have as many administrators as undergraduate students. We tend to look at that as merely a cost issue, but in reality all those administrators are there for control purposes. For several generations within universities there has been a goal to pursue progressive ideology by hiring from a select group that is mostly female and steeped in the fashions of post-modern thought. When I worked as a trial consultant we offered this as "breathing your own fumes" or in other words, an echo chamber of thought bouncing around in ways that didn't allow for alternatives to be considered. At the modern universities, because of the differing disciplines, little cross-breeding occurred. Physics and Engineering never talked to Social Scientist. They found that students could be recruited easily into the various social science and education departments as long as they stripped away advanced math requirements (ironically it is Sociology that has benefited from the computer technologies/statistical software packages that are the foundation of understanding of the social order), in favor of qualitative methods and looking at soft exercise of power which is the central thought of post modernism. There have been literally tens of thousands of PHD thesis looking deeply at the feelings and language employed of various groups without any true connection to the world. Lived experience is now king in much of the academy.
So you ask how is it possible that intelligent people lose sight of empirical reality? They have been given the wrong set of tools. Reflexive/emotions/qualitative are kings in the academy, while empirical/positivism/quantitative is pushed to the side for the vast majority of university students. I hate it that this has happened. But, I saw it first hand as I was in graduate school in the 1990s. And now it is about battling ideologies instead of a search for the truth being enforced by an army of administrators.
I can tell you almost exactly how this would go in most universities.
Person A: I think we should end our COVID masking policies
Person B: Maybe. Let's form a study group to come up with a recommendation
SIX MONTHS LATER
Person B: Good news. The study group has determined that masking is no longer necessary. It's going to the Administrative Rules committee for final approval when they meet next quarter.
THREE MONTHS LATER
Rules Committee: We agree with the study group, but Legal needs to weigh in to make sure it's not causing us any additional liability.
THREE MONTHS LATER
Legal: There's no legal issues with removing masks. Once Information Technology can update the staff tracking systems we can remove the requirement.
Information Technology: Nobody told us about this. We'll have to research what systems are going to be affected.
SIX MONTHS LATER
Information Technology: OK, our systems are updated and ready to handle this rule change.
Communications: Great. We'll come up with some messaging to get the word out.
THREE MONTHS LATER
Communications: OK, the communication is ready
Deans Office: Great...we'll have a few changes once the Dean is done with their review
etc.
This encapsulates higher education to a tee. My 20yr old engineering major is trying to take a class this summer at Rutgers (does not attend Rutgers). Class is 100% online and begins May 22nd. Rutgers vax policy has changed - you no longer need to be vaxed, but it doesn't take affect until May 15. They won't let him register for the class because he doesn't have a booster (has first 2 shots). They told him he could either wait to register on May 15 and hope the class is still open or get a booster. He is now taking the class at a community college, refuses to give Rutgers one cent of his money.
Who is John Galt?
I am looking around for the Mad Hatter at this point. Off with their heads!!!!
Perfect summation.
But remember, they began their masking policies INSTANTLY and WITHOUT REVIEW of any sort.
Thank you Gentlemen.
Well put.
The only explanation for their insanity I can conjure is that it is destabilizing. And destabilizing the existing society in order to create their Brave New World has always enticed these narcissistic morons with god complexes.
It provided the expert bureaucratic class, a creature of the progressive left, with very tempting a new source of power and influence, particularly over their ideological opponents and the broader population. It was also very sciencey, something they use often to beat over the head of their ideological opponents.
So, my working answer is more power plus the ability to weaponize their mandates against opponents that, ideologically, are more skeptical of mass mandates and central control. There was also an election to think about, which perhaps explains the political leadership’s sudden 180 on Covid.
It snowballed when organizations saw that some measures like masking or vaccination could be used to publicly bully those opponents through clever (but false) rhetoric and also purge them from within. The Feds came along soon enough when it became clear the permanent regime class was going to use this event for its own purposes. Most members of course are followers so they went along from within organizations where group think is the norm.
I would finish by comparing today to the old Roman Empire. The more power centralizes and sniffs its own scent, surrounding itself with sycophants, the more degenerate the ruling class becomes. It’s human nature it would appear.
Today’s ruling class is deeply unserious. The rhetoric on gender, China, Ukraine, Covid, etc all betray a fictional worldview where managing perception and enforcing conformity is all that matters to them.
Rome when from Augustus to Nero. We are seeing the same thing here. They don’t see how actively harmful all this is to their own followers. Degenerates never do. I reminded of a couple Romanian dictators of recent memory.
“I have yet to see a good explanation as to why the LEFT has completely lost its mind”.
My theory is the LEFT is comprised mostly of kids no one really cared to be around, the “hangers on” so to speak. To be tolerated they mimicked whatever the popular kids said or did, even if it went against their own beliefs or intuition. Eventually, what little sense of self they ever possessed is lost entirely. Truth, honesty, even morality become expendable to preserve membership in and survival of their click, tribe, cult or however you want to characterize it. I’m reminded of the German citizens located in villages located just outside the Nazi death camps, who despite the stench of burning corpses denied knowing anything of their existence.
We are now seeing how vicious and determined the left can be in suppressing any dissent, even from within its own ranks to become and remain dominant. There was a time when the US government fought against such tyranny. Now it is imposing it.
Yesterday's hippies have become today's "establishment".
Tyrants.
My lefty friends have a narrative that Progressive politics is all about Caring. Caring for the underserved, underrepresented, underpaid, whatever. Their Covid views are an extension of this. To them, masking (even in 2023, among fully-vaccinated people) is a sign that they Care for everyone around them. And if anyone objects, it is clearly because the objector just doesn't Care enough about other people. I periodically bring up actual medical news to them (Cochrane, Mayo Clinic), and in return get a stink eye and a response that I'm being uncaring. At this point, I'm about to take bets on how many years it goes on.
Marxist "woke" is the lipstick on a pig named totalitarian finance. You might be interested in browsing the EU sponsored Lindsay/Furedi YouTube lecture. This article is a report on the the "trickle down" damage of the class war on the American psyche.
Rigger is also really funny. His posts are the highlight of my day.
Good article; thanks for the link.
The only appropriate response to these parents is laughter and derision. Can it really be that these people represent the educational elite? Sheep? Or are they they the polite and polished Eloi from the Time Machine waiting for their individual call to servitude?
Another example that the intersection of intelligence and education in a Venn diagram is very small.
Excellent Sheep by William Deresiewicz 2015
Outlines how it happens at Ivy League Institutions.
Thanks. Will get a copy.
Soon enough the Morlocks will be gathering........