iquitos wrote:luvslalom wrote:
http://tiny.cc/UAYPC
Early conversations in this url. They had their agents everywhere.
which part? i loved this:
SARAH OVERSTREET »
Graduation does not suddenly make a teenager into an adult
I wish I could be more charitable about the seven adults who "chaperoned" 124 Alabama high school seniors to a trip to the exotic Caribbean island of Aruba.
Natalee Holloway's relatives must be a lot more forgiving than I would be. Marcia Twitty, the aunt of the honor society, full scholarship-winning recent high school graduate, says Holloway's family doesn't blame the chaperones. She told reporters the adults who accompanied the graduates on their senior trip were "incredible, wonderful people. ... These were people who knew our kids day in and day out," according to a quote on wnbc.com.
Incredible, wonderful people who had a severe lapse in judgment, that is. "Let's see, I think it might be fun to be outnumbered over 17 to one by teenagers hell-bent on getting away from their folks on an island where they can drink unlimited amounts of alcohol like they can't back in the States. And keep track of them? Well, we'll be around, somewhere, if they need us. ... "
From news reports, the recent Mountain Brook High School graduates from Birmingham, Ala., pretty much ran over the island like a bunch of ants at a Sunday school picnic, with too many treats to even take in all at once.
A woman named Jodi Bearman put the trip together, and defended the chaperones. "They (the students) sign a waiver, and it basically makes sure it's clear to them that they are responsible for themselves," she told wnbc. "Chaperones assist in emergencies, but by no means are liable if an accident should happen or anything like that."
Obviously not, since they left without the teen when she didn't show up at the airport the next morning. Can you even imagine leaving a foreign country while one of the children you came with is missing?
After absolving the chaperones, Bearman rearranged her mouth so she could talk out the other side: "Although the students are expected to be responsible for themselves, Bearman said she knew that this being their first venture out after high school, chaperones would be needed to supervise," wnbc reports. Letting kids run around an island bar-hopping is supervising?
"The chaperones intentionally go out at night, and try to go to the places and check on the kids, but by no means are there specific instructions to do so," Bearman said. Oh? Why not? Because the kids are suddenly all grown up because they got to put their tassels on the other side of their mortarboards?
That brings us to the students' parents. Did they honestly think it was a good idea to send kids on a trip where their children sign waivers relieving the adults with them of any responsibility to keep them as safe as possible?
I know from bitter experience what can happen by overestimating a child's maturity and likelihood to do what I say, and how powerful peer influence is on a child's behavior. When I had an almost-17-year-old foster daughter, I once put too much trust in her and gave her and her sweet girlfriend, their lovely batting eyes assuring me how they would comport themselves, just enough extra freedom to let them seriously endanger themselves.
Am I nuts, or is it the parents who let young kids sign their safety away?
I don't know which is better...to be filthy rich or just plain filthy. The idesgressions of the upper upper class...have fun but don't get caught.
