When I was younger I remember one particular afternoon I was out with my brother. We’d ridden our bicycles a few km from home to get a haircut and having just finished, were walking back together to our bikes.
I remember being distracted by something and falling a ways behind my brother, and then by the time I caught up he had four kids surrounding and picking on him.
They were obviously a few years older then he was but decidedly also a few years younger than I was. I can’t remember exactly what they were saying but it was your usual random kid taunting. That and I remember he copped a few random slaps to the head.
Anyway, when I caught up they took one look at me and drew the assumption I was his older brother.
‘uh.. his brother looks a bit pissed…’
and they left.
My brother, not really having gone through anything serious (we’re talking all of two or three minutes here) was fine so we left it at that and got on with our day.
Somehow I can’t help but think that had that happened today, the fact that I was older wouldn’t have mattered. Not only that, but there’d probably be a good chance one of them would be armed too.
If things escalated no doubt we’d both have caught the short end of the stick.
Fast forward to today and things have escalated quite a bit. These days kids don’t just squabble, bully eachother over Facebook or circulate nasty SMS’s amongst circles of friends…
…apparently they’re now hanging each other too.
Last December at Para Hills Highschool in Adelaide, South Australia, a thirteen year old boy was hung from a pole via a velcro strap.
And when I say hung, I don’t mean suspended, I literally mean hung hung, like the death penalty. Not only did this happen on two seperate occasions but the mother of the boy wasn’t notified. She only found out presumably when her son came home and had no voice for two weeks.
With students being openly hung at the school, how did Para Hills High respond?
They simply suspended the three students responsible. After their suspension period, it was as if nothing had every happened.
What the hell kind of bizarro world is this where students are running around hanging each other and receiving absolutely no form of punishment?
Contrary to education departments all around the world, suspension means nothing if you’re a student. Let’s face it, if you’ve got the balls to hang a fellow student you’re not really going to give a shit about being suspended are you.
And why on Earth haven’t the police been involved? It’s not like they had a punch on, stole the kids lunch money or called him names.. they strung him up and hung him!
Assault, intent to kill, intent to cause grievous body harm, being freakishly lucky he didn’t die?! Take your pick!
Amazingly though, after being informed of the matter Education Minister Jay Weatherhill stated
From the material before me, the school clearly took the incident very seriously.
Meanwhile Weatherhill claims he has ‘zero tolerance‘ against bullying.
The school and government’s horrendously underwhelming response to the incident aside though, as a parent of one of the three kids responsible, how the fuck do your raise your kids to think it’s ok to go around hanging people?!
Seriously, what the hell kind of upbringing do you need to receive to think that it’s ok to hang people at age thirteen?!
This is the kind of crap I’d expect from war torn fleeing refugees, but school kids? Seriously, has parenting become that atrocious in Australia?!
Honestly, the entire raising children system in this country seems utterly broken.
During the day you’ve got schoolkids hanging each other at school. And if they’re not at school, they’re taunting tafe students.
Sixteen year old tafe student then cracks the shits and the next thing you know he’s on school grounds armed with a knife wanting to bash students for saying something about a girl.
Then at night time you’ve got underage kids running riot with spray cans and alcohol. The police’s response?
Y’know… because it’s abundantly clear the parents give a shit if they’ve let their kids run riot in the first place.
To be fair though it’s hard to actually blame the police, I mean what else are they supposed to do? In the case of the Tafe student caught armed and wanting to punch on with high school students during the middle of the day, he was simply charged with possession of a controlled weapon.
This kid had the knife in his hand and was punching on with students, told police he carries the knife around for ‘protection’ because at age 16 he’s got ‘enemies in town that are after him‘… yet ‘posession’ of the knife is the best they can get him on?!
No doubt at his court hearing we’ll hear about his trashy upbringing and how hard done by he is. One week, two weeks community service? That sounds about right.
So just to recap, we’ve got kids running around hanging each other, schools trying to cover it up by not telling anyone, police not being called in because when they are they can’t do anything except call the parents. The same parents who are responsible for the actions of their children to begin with.
And, if the police do actually charge someone with something, they front up court and get off because of their upbringing at the hands of their neglectful parents. Once off the cycle begins again and wash, rinse and repeat.
God help us when these kids have kids of their own.