A recent post from Sarcastro regarding an incident at his son’s school brought out the differences between how a father parents and how mother parents.

Apparently, an eighth grade girl had a “hit list” of people she didn’t like. Pandemonium then proceeded to erupt.

…

Never mind the media adding to the pants shitting hysteria of neurotic parents. But go ahead and read the lede from Channel 4.

A local school system is dealing with hit lists, and they believe they are coming from an eighth-grade student.

Oh. Now it is multiple lists? Not multiple lists! Oh, the humanity!

Mrs. Sarcastro went into full panic mode over this stupid damn thing. She started railing about whatever it is that Security Moms get worked up about.

I foolishly tried to extinguish this blaze of outrage.

“What’s the big deal? This kid made a list. So what?”

“What if one of our kids was on that list?”

“So what? It’s just a list.”

“It was a KILL list!”

“So kids are getting expelled from school for making lists?”

“She brought a gun to school!”

“No. She might or might not have brought a gun to school, and if she did, then she should be expelled and charged. If she really brought a gun to school, don’t you think that would be the story instead of this stupid list bullshit?”

“If 13 was on that list, I would have him in private school so fast…”

“Like that is a solution. Nothing bad happens in private schools. Just ask those Amish girls.”

Even in the comments, a line was drawn distinguishing the maternal instinct from the paternal one.

Sending our children out into the world is indeed very gut wrenching and scary. Of course we don’t want anything to happen to them. But how does a parent reconcile this without keeping their kids under lock and key 24/7? And if we did, we’d look like abusers or crazies or both. What’s the answer? Private school? Homeschooling? Police on campus? Zero tolerance? Metal detectors?

But this was just a list. And as Sarcastro says:

It just seems un-American somehow to cultivate the idea in children that putting their thoughts onto paper is a crime. We aren’t making our kids safer, we’re just making them better sheep.

Now that is a very scary thought.