7 June

I noticed yet another symptom of kidult culture this week. A preface, those with no exposure to the front line of classroom teaching decided it was a good idea to give parents a much bigger role in schools. Now ask any primary teacher in particular, how every day is a nightmare juggling the demands of parents even more than children. This has swamped already completely overwhelmed teachers with the responbility for parenting the children of kidults. Children without a whole range of basic social skills, skills they used to get from adults, before their parents were swept up in the replacement of adult culture with kidult culture. They’re more likely to be playing the X Box and going to gigs than raising the children. I saw this at the Lithgow Halloween festival too, where by far the greatest passion for the event comes from adults, not kids. Kids are often dragged along as baggage, for the parents’ night out in Halloween drag. And now I’ve seen it firsthand at work. Some more background, with schools now bending over backwards to please parents, a whole range of personal and social issues that used to be left at the school gate now have to be dealt with during the school day. This can mean students being constantly referred to teachers and more senior staff to resolve a whole series of interpersonal clashes, endlessly counselling and disciplining kids. No basic manners, no sense of how to cooperate with others, and increasingly total disrespect for female teachers in particular. And this is what I saw in the workplace this week. The youngest staff are engaged in constant sniping at each other, often behind closed doors, but I found out this week they also dump it all on their supervisors too, endless stories about how X or Y is being mean to them, etc. They never left school, they’re going to see the Deputy to dob on somebody else. It’s what the tyranny of parent involvement in schools taught them to do. One of them made the mistake of trying to involve me in one of these personal battles, and I said ‘mate, I’m here to work, this isn’t a social club, leave that shit at home’. Friends know I used that approach as a manager too, you’re not paid to come to work to be friends with people (though that’s nice), you’re paid to work. Have manners, be civil to people, but it’s not the job of either workplaces or schools to deal with your petty interpersonal shit.