The other day, I woke to an interesting discussion on NPR’s Breath of Fresh Air. Seems a girl from Oklahoma is suing her school for a violation of privacy. Basically, what they’re doing, is requiring drug testing from everyone who participates in competitive extra-curricular activities, including band, choir, academic decathlon, etc. Drug testing, it’s not just for atheletes and corporate employees any more. At any rate, they ran a comment from a mother that showed up on the Supreme Court steps who was waving a picture of her daughter saying, “If her school had mandatory drug testing, she’d still be alive today.” Ok, now here’s my rant…she’s the mother, she should have been the one who might have been requiring the drug testing if she thought there was a drug problem. She’s the mother who should have been talking to her daughter about drugs and helping her find info on how drugs interact with the body and what the long-term consequences could have been (obviously the girl knows that she could die as a result, now). On that note, I really want to know what is up with this new trend in not parenting? My mum says this is the result of hippies growing up and mixing with the baby boomers who weren’t hippies and resulting in parents who ‘want to be friends’ with their kids instead of being the evil parent who actually looks out for their kids. Not to mention, since when has it become the role of the school parenting kids? Schools already have drug education in their schools, they have sex ed in their schools (at least some of them, and fewer that are realistic), and numerous other things that parents should be teaching their kids at home in greater depth. Call me odd, but I believe in teaching kids about sex and drugs as early as they can possibly understand the basic components of the topic. So basically, I’d love to slap this woman. Not because she was stupid enough to not fully parent her kid, but because she’s in denial about her own role and blaming the kid’s death on the fact the school didn’t drug test her daughter as a requirement for attending school. Sheesh, it’s absolutely pathetic.