Thoughts Upon Discipline and the Nation at Large

                 Kiddo is off her grounding, and I'm so relieved.  She firmly believes that if she makes us miserable enough, we will release her from any punishment she is under.  I'm guessing it's typical kid, though I am not entirely sure.  The internet, when I was a kid, was something that scientists on television used, not something that parents needed to make rules about, especially in our out-of-the-way little town.  We barely had cable. 

                Kiddo had, unbeknownst to us, been skipping out of her online classes to watch videos on a site that has been only allowed under supervision since she first figured out how an IPad works.  We didn't create the rule lightly, but rather to protect her, as there is some odd stuff that a kid can fall into on the site, and we don't want her hurt.  We had been trusting that she was doing what she was supposed to be doing, while I dealt with Tiny and attempted to get a moment to myself.

                I walked in one afternoon to check on her classwork progress, and caught the tail end of a hair tutorial.  When I checked her history that afternoon, I found that she had been sneaking onto the website every day when everyone was supposed to be working on their own.  What really hurt was that I had been waiting patiently for hours for her to finish her work so that I could check it, as it had been slipshod before.  I was livid.  Grounding for a week seemed like a fair punishment.  She fought it the whole week.  It's been exhausting to keep her inside and to force her to entertain herself.  I can understand why so many parents are pushing so hard for in-person school to start again, but I'm just not comfortable yet.  There's so many things that can go wrong, and the consequences are so high.

                There's a lot of "over it" attitude in our area around Covid-19, and I can understand that.  I'm tired of wearing masks and distancing and staying home and no longer having an industry.  However.  We are not being asked very much compared to our grandparents' sacrifices during World War II, and not nearly for so long.  I don't know how to solve the worlds' problems, and I don't know if, ultimately, I am doing the completely correct thing. 

                I will say this, however.  We are being uniquely challenged to show our compassion and caring of others, and we are failing.  We are choosing our temporary comfort over the lives of others.  We are choosing politicians who value the wants of the very few over the needs of the many.  We are cheering for appointees to lifetime positions for reasons that have little to do with the job for which we will be paying them.  I have no idea when this will stop.  I don't know how we as a country will heal from the fever dream that has been created here, but I think the first thing we will have to do is own our parts in it.  For now, I will pray for the right thing to happen, and I will use the free will I have been granted by my creator to make the best possible choices for my family.  I only hope that others in states that have more power than mine will follow suit.  If you are choosing something because you like to see the other side cry, examine yourself.  If you think the larger states should just shut up and pay their taxes, examine your opinions about welfare.  There is a graphic going around that imagines if certain states broke off and formed their own nations.  If that actually occurred, the United States could face some very unique challenges, the chief being the loss of large portions of their tax base, as well as access to some major industries.  I doubt that will ever occur, but I will say that the unfortunate thing is that the internet has a much longer memory than most people, and while many had the opportunity to burn the photographs and writings that linked themselves to being on the wrong side of history in the past, such a situation does not exist today.  We can find your fansite dedicated to Nickelback in high school, and we can find your bigotry.  It won't even take a government-grade hacker.