FB Doodlings: Sue Ragen thinks an 18 year old should continue to be infantilized? More on the Rachel Phelan issue - Granite Grok

FB Doodlings: Sue Ragen thinks an 18 year old should continue to be infantilized? More on the Rachel Phelan issue

Facebook debate

To recap: Rachel Phelan, and 18 year old high school student wrote on Op-Ed about the negotiations between the Manchester teachers and the Manchester School Board. Rich Girard, head of those negotiations for the School Board, emailed her to correct some factual errors.  Then it blew up and David Scannell decided he could leak a private letter from Phelan’s lawyer, giving us even more fodder on which to opine. And Steve did, Manchester Democrat(s) Using a Student for a Political Smear is the Scandal, and on Facebook. And a Sue Regan decided she could take us to task for even bringing attention to this fiasco of Democrat making (reformatted, emphasis mine):

What’s really sad is an adult in a position of power felt the need to respond to a student’s editorial directly to the student. I don’t care if legally she is an adult.

Well, there you go – right in line with Progressive thinking – adults are only children and must be treated as such.  That’s really their superior hubris in thinking finally coming to fruition.  I’m a Boomer and I couldn’t WAIT to be considered an adult – not so much any more.  It’s the realization of their governing philosophy – they are the adults and everyone else is a child.

She is a student making her way in this world working for the school newspaper. It’s our job as adults to allow kids to use their voices to express their opinion appropriately. He could have easily written a rebuttal in the newspaper, but he chose to contact her privately. As we teach our children, if you wouldn’t do it or say it face to face don’t write it,text it or tweet it. I highly doubt this man would request a private meeting to excoriate her so why do it via email?

Well, as another commenter told her, Rich Girard keeping the correction one-on-one was probably the right thing to do instead of blasting it out all over the place.  Remember, Phelan didn’t just put her Op-Ed into the school’s newspaper, the Little Green, she also put it up at the Manchester Ink Link. Full authorship, full outreach, full adult.

So, I answered Sue Regan back as I’ve had it with people who believe that adults must be “coddled”. It’s the Progressive way: mitigate all bad decisions and make them “whole”, all the time patting them on the head and going “don’t worry, honey, we Progressives will make it all better”. And we real adults that believe in self-reliance and self-sufficiency should be pushing back on this condescending treatment:

 It’s also our job, as adults, to correct students when they are factually wrong. She also posted up at the Manchester Ink Link so Phelan put herself right into the arena of ideas and politics as an adult. It is BECAUSE she’s an adult, she’s open to criticism on her opinions as well. And in this day and age, electronic is fine and dandy.

Trap set…..trap tripped. She decided to step where she thought that she had full reign to insult middle aged white males – yep, she became sexist and ageist about it – and made my exact point for me

Wow! So callous and cold to students that are literally engaging in civics. I guess middle aged people are really the generation that have no idea how to mentor a whole new generation of leaders. It’s attack mode all the way if someone’s opinion differs not taking into account anything else. Like I said I don’t care if she’s 18 she’s a child, a student who is actively involved in life and how it works. Too bad middle aged men feel threatened by that

Yeah, that’s the ticket – sexist, ageist, whiteness, because SHUT UP!  Sorry deary, it doesn’t work that way:

Cold and Callous? That would be not correcting her at all and letting her believe that she had everything right. That would be believing that an adult is nothing more than a child. That would be in treating her differently than any other adult that does the same.

Cold and Callous would be reject the idea that age has nothing to do with anything – tell me, how would Rachel Phelan take it that you are calling her a mere child? Some upset, I’d bet. Someone who is of the age, if they could die in defense of this country if she enlisted, is hardly a child. Cold and Callous is continuing to coddle someone as a mere child that isn’t.

If you want to play in the arena of adults, which she did of her own free will, be prepared for what comes of it. You’re the one who is Cold and Callous for treating Phelan as someone she isn’t.  BTW, I’m not middle aged but I am of an age that if someone wants to be treated like an adult by acting like one, well, then I will. That’s Respect – not “cold and callous”.

She just couldn’t realize what she was doing – and returned to her dogma of “18 isn’t an adult” – and forgetting about the “other site”:

She wasn’t playing in arena of adults she was writing in a student newspaper. Where she is supposed to feel safe and supported by the adults that should be mentoring her like a fellow journalist

Oy vay! Talk about being obstinate about the facts. When you write about adult themes, you may well have adults commenting on it.  Less so in a student newspaper, very MUCH more so on a commercial news site.  To the latter – pray tell me, readers, how that isn’t “playing in the arena of adults”??? That she thinks that the Manchester Ink Link is run by Jr. High kids?

And get the “safe and supported” schtick.  Once again, we’re all supposed to “feel” safe and secure – always the emotions with these folks.  Nothing seems to matter except a false sense of self-esteem.  Talk about cold and callous – how much so is Sue Regan for the lie she lays out for Rachel Phelan by misleading her that the world outside of school will be just like where she is now.  How is that helping her to become independent and make her own, independent way in the world?  A world which is far from the cocoon that is school.  Sure, there are problems in high school – IT’S HIGH SCHOOL. And a lot more problems than what many of us faced decades ago.  But to lead someone off the false security cliff is cold and callous in and of itself. Again, I tried to speak rationally to Ms. Regan and restated what I thought was the obvious:

She also put her Op-Ed into the Manchester Ink Link – an online news site specializing in Manchester, NH. Where everyone could see it. She put HERSELF out there – like an adult. Kids need to kept safe – like my 3 year old grandson as he learns right from wrong. An 18 year old does not need that coddling that he gets. You’re continuing to infantilize an adult – THAT’S cold, callous, and wrong.

As far as mentoring, that’s up to her high school teacher and her parents. Much less so the Ink Link. The rest of us should treat her as she has said she is – an adult. What about that concept is so hard to understand and accept?

But she doesn’t.  Part 2 later.

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