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This time, it’s personal.
That now famous phrase was the tagline to a Jaws sequel in the late 80s … and it just so happens that the image of a blood-thirsty shark thrashing angrily in the water does a decent job of symbolizing how I’ve been feeling lately.
OK, so I’m exaggerating … but only a bit.
My local school board recently made a decision with which I sharply disagreed. Earlier, I had joined a group of parents in campaigning for a measure that we felt would make a huge difference in our children’s lives. But the board wasn’t immediately swayed by our case and suddenly, I found myself feeling uncharacteristically, irrationally angry. For lack of a better word, I was offended. It was as if the board members had said, “We don’t think your child deserves to get this wonderful thing.”
Clearly, that’s not what they said. No elected official in their right mind would say that, especially not to a mob of irate parents. But that’s the garbled message my roiling mama bear mind heard and, inside my head, anyway, the response was swift: “How dare you do that to MY child?”
I found myself remembering all the other passionate mothers and fathers I’d watched years ago circulate petitions, run fundraisers, speak at school board meetings and sometimes even hold rallies complete with picket signs. I witnessed all this when I worked as an education reporter, covering schools, students and, yes, involved parents.
At the time, I was childless. I thought I understood the parents I covered. I heard their fervent speeches and knew they only wanted what was best for their children. What I failed to grasp back then, however, was exactly how personal it all was. How easily a school board decision based on cold calculations — concerns about budgets and space availability, for instance — could be taken as a personal affront. What I truly understand now is that when something affects your own child, it’s hard not to take it personally. It’s disquietingly easy to paint the person whose opinion runs diametrically opposed to yours as a wrongdoer, a fiend, an enemy of the highest order.
But it’s not personal. It’s just (school) business. And it’s not productive to act on anger by lashing out, as I’ll admit I’ve been tempted to do. It makes much more sense to be civil and try to soldier on, hoping that the next time I support a school program, my efforts will have some teeth.
Just not shark teeth. Go away, Jaws. Your angry thrashing isn’t welcome here.