This has been bothering me for days.

[Gypsy]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-father-daughter-dances-gender-discrimination-20120918,0,2172144.story

Card carrying liberal here. Raised by a single mom. But I really do think this is wrong. Some single mom got her panties in her twist cause her daughter was upset and being excluded from father and daughter dances. Instead of just planning an awesome girls night out on the same night with her daughter to show her that different can be great-- mom decided that ruining every one else's fun was the best way to teach her daughter life lessons.

And the school board, instead of just making it parent and child dance night... which would be at least a way to keep it going... decides an outright ban is the right thing to do.

I do think the RI politician is grandstanding, since the change happened 4 months before he made an issue of it, but at the same time... I do think that not all traditions, even if they are a little lop sided, are bad. And that we might be losing something precious in our desire to be PC.

As I know we have a broad base of people with all kinds of backgrounds so... I thought I'd open this up to the floor and ask for your thoughts.

 

[Gypsy]

Wrong forum sorry. Will have moved to Hangout.

 

[ruby59]

I am from Rhode Island, and am familiar with this because it is the school system all of my children went through. I did not read the article, but the reporting has been a little off. This actually happened last year, and the girl did go to the father / daughter dance. So it is not clear why it is being banned this year. They are actually meeting tonight at one of the Cranston middle schools to discuss it.

I can tell that one of the highlights of my 2 girls' and husband''s memories were the father / daughter dances. I do not know why the ACLU has to disect everything. First it was the prayer banner. Then it was the crosses on the memorials of soldiers killed in the war, and now this.

Hopefully our 11 0'clock news will update us. But I can tell you from speaking to others in our community that people are very angry over this.

 

[diamondseeker2006]

I think it is a very sad shame. In this day and age, how can we see anything but good in fathers spending quality time with their children??? If the girls didn't want to go to the dance, they certainly wouldn't have to. I think it is a sweet tradition and I have to wonder about people who have the spare time to tear down something harmless and good.

(ruby...glad to hear people are angry about it!)

 

[ruby59]

http://cranston.patch.com/articles/live-school-committee-father-daughter-dance-meeting

Here is how the meeting went in resovling it.

 

[diamondseeker2006]

http://cranston.patch.com/articles/live-school-committee-father-daughter-dance-meeting

Here is how the meeting went in resovling it.

Okay, good. They passed a resolution asking the state delegation to change the law to allow for father-daughter, mother-son, etc. events.

 

[distracts]

I think both sides made mistakes here. I did father-daughter dances as a kid, and sometimes girls who didn't have fathers in their life would be brought along by their best friend's dad or a grandfather or uncle. Some of them even had moms in attendance (fortunately, I guess, where I was no one pitched a fit about a dad not being able to make it, for nonexistance or a business trip or whatever). I don't know why the group didn't just allow the girl to go in the first place - excluding someone because they don't have a father to bring them is a dick move. Yeah, it's kind of lame to have them banned on the grounds of gender discrimination, but it's ALSO lame not to make exceptions for non-traditional family structures.

 

[ruby59]

I think both sides made mistakes here. I did father-daughter dances as a kid, and sometimes girls who didn't have fathers in their life would be brought along by their best friend's dad or a grandfather or uncle. Some of them even had moms in attendance (fortunately, I guess, where I was no one pitched a fit about a dad not being able to make it, for nonexistance or a business trip or whatever). I don't know why the group didn't just allow the girl to go in the first place - excluding someone because they don't have a father to bring them is a dick move. Yeah, it's kind of lame to have them banned on the grounds of gender discrimination, but it's ALSO lame not to make exceptions for non-traditional family structures.

Distracts, this happened last year, and the girl did go to the dance with a male figure.

 

[ascari_2]

So why are the fathers and daughters being discriminated against?

BTW, what is a "card carrying liberal?" I had no idea they gave out cards for that.

 

[Gypsy]

http://cranston.patch.com/articles/live-school-committee-father-daughter-dance-meeting

Well reading this. The 'facts' were reported incorrectly by the media. The Politician decided to use the issue to grandstand. The ACLU responded from their high horse making everything worse. And no one bothered to check the facts.

The STATE legislature proscribed all activities of this type 10 years ago. And following that the schools in the state started doing "family dances", but recently the parents complained about the expense of activities that cost 200 for the whole family to attend and so the school proposed the father daughter dances (having forgotten about the State law), and someone brought it up to the school board that they were illegal and the school board looked it up, saw that it was correct and decided to comply with the laws of the State that the legislature, an elected body, had in their 'wisdom' decided to put into place.

I hate the media and politics. This is why.


"card carrying" is a saying.

 

[0-0-0]

That's how you know it's an election year.