[Ansteorra] children and events

[Chris Zakes]

At 06:57 AM 6/1/2006, you wrote:
>From: Judie Willey <littledragon0861 at gmail.com>
>Date: May 31, 2006 11:34 AM
>Subject: [Ansteorra] children and events
>To: ansteorra at lists.ansteorra.org
>
>
>This is a portion of what is going out in the Steppes Newsletter. I am
>not trying to start any arguments...but we need to do something as
>parents and as Ansteorrans. As the saying goes...it takes a village to
>raise a child...in our case, it takes a Kingdom to raise a child.
>
>A note to the Parents:
>
>Please remember that the MoC is NOT a babysitting service. There were
>many children under the age of 12 just wandering around the hall
>unsupervised and causing disturbances on Saturday. YOU MUST sign you
>children in and out of the children's activities. This is for their
>safety.


Wait a minute. On the one hand you're saying that "it takes a kingdom to 
raise a child" but on the other hand you seem to be objecting to parents 
who leave it to "the kingdom" to watch their kids.

While I agree that the MoC isn't a babysitting service, it is *not* the 
responsibility of "the kingdom" (or "the village" for that matter) to raise 
kids; that's the parents' job.

If parents are shirking their responsibility and letting kids run wild and 
cause problems, then it might be "the kingdom's" job to take the parents to 
task for being irresponsible--ask the unsupervised kid where their parents 
are and if they're not immediately available,then maybe the heralds should 
cry the camp to reunite the wayward parents with their kids; if the parents 
are being sufficiently irresponsible they should be asked to leave the 
site, etc.

         -Tivar Moondragon
father of three *responsible* SCA kids