Paul Levy recounts a letter a local youth-soccer league got from a lawyer trying to get the league to make an exception for his 7-year-old so she can play soccer with earrings.
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Comments
W....T....F....
By Hyde_Parker
Sat, 09/27/2014 - 11:47am
W....T....F....
you mean the pearl clutching, right?
By anon
Sat, 09/27/2014 - 1:16pm
Because good lord, I haven't seen that much pearl-clutching in years.
*eyeroll*
By anon
Sat, 09/27/2014 - 11:57am
Reading that made my mind go completely blank, filling me with a vague sense of despair.
Values
By perruptor
Sat, 09/27/2014 - 12:13pm
Clearly, Mr. Lawyer-For-15-Years is bringing his daughter up with a lawyer's set of values. If you don't want to comply with regulations that apply to everyone because it's inconvenient for you, draft a letter. If that doesn't work, you can always sue. Who knows, maybe the judge will forget his hearing aid that day, and rule in your favor!
I'm not going to say anything about piercing a seven-year-old's ears, as much as I want to.
Clearly
By anon
Sat, 09/27/2014 - 3:14pm
Mr. Lawyer has never seen what it looks like when a child's earring gets ripped out.
She's 7. She can skip practice for one day.
If her earring was ripped out
By SwirlyGrrl
Mon, 09/29/2014 - 11:27am
He'd sue because they didn't enforce the rule!
Not just girls get their ears pierced anymore ... I had boys on my teams that had to be reminded to take theirs out, too.
Lawyer parents
By Kathode
Sat, 09/27/2014 - 12:23pm
have been doing this for a while, even overturning affirmative action. http://www.nytimes.com/1995/09/25/us/challenge-to-...
Someone's got to do it.
By Bob Leponge
Sat, 09/27/2014 - 2:58pm
If your kid was denied participation in a valuable program, solely on account of her race, would you shrug, shut up, and take it, or would you try to get it changed? Discrimination on the basis of race is blatantly illegal. The fact that the parent happened to be a lawyer seems somewhat irrelevant.
Oh, hey
By perruptor
Sat, 09/27/2014 - 6:32pm
I think someone should tell you ...
earrings are not a race.
Or a gender, or a sexual orientation, or an ethnicity, or a disability, or any other involuntary personal condition. I suppose you're trying to troll us, but that's really, really weak sauce.
What?
By TomW
Sat, 09/27/2014 - 7:30pm
The person you replied to was talking about a case involving affirmative action at a school. (S)he was not talking about the earring thing.
Race or ethnicity
By just passing through
Sat, 09/27/2014 - 11:03pm
Earrings aren't a race or ethnicity, but the policy does kind of scream that some white person came up with it. A sizable number of Black, Latina, and south Asian girls get their ears pierced in infancy, because it's a cultural thing, and are used to having earrings and being careful with them by the time they're school age. High school, college, and professional sports don't generally have rules that no earrings are allowed whatsoever. It sounds like the person who came up with the rule is a white person who views earrings as something kids don't have and something that is easy to give up and aren't seeing it as something that is culturally important to many people and also so totally common that it's usually a non-issue.
Sorry, you're mistaken
By perruptor
Sun, 09/28/2014 - 8:41am
This is not true.
The other discussion, about race, is an off-topic derail. Yes, lawyers do that too, but we don't need to go off into the weeds.
eyeroll
By anon
Sun, 09/28/2014 - 8:51am
Yeah, those whitebread girls don't wear earrings or get their ears pierced whrn a child. It's a 'cultural' thing, you know, white people are all alike, unlike black, 'Latina' and southeast Asian.
Are you smoking crack? Some people will inject race, ethnicity, into ANY conversation. It's like a mental illness, like OCD.
If it is a health and safety
By kvn
Sun, 09/28/2014 - 11:36am
If it is a health and safety and liability hazard, what does white have to do with it? Would you reject a white doctor that tries to help with the Ebola crisis over there in Africa?
100% wrong
By Nonymouse
Sun, 09/28/2014 - 4:29pm
WTF are you even talking about? This has been a rule *forever.* It's not singling anyone out; it's about real, physical safety. It's not a "race" or "cultural" thing, it's a "how about you don't get your earlobe torn in half" thing. And it's absolutely an important rule. There was a girl on my high school volleyball team who had gotten her earring caught on a batting helmet when she was in middle school. She would be the first one to explain to you why the rule should be enforced.
When I was in high school, the big thing was navel rings. So many girls would get them over the off-season or summer break and then try to hide them once the season started. My coaches and the officials were merciless when they found out you had one - you either took it out (which is a lot bigger deal than with an earring) or you sat the bench. If you refused to take it out for more than three games, you were off the team.
Racebaiting Fail
By Sock_Puppet
Mon, 09/29/2014 - 7:24am
If the individual had her ears pierced in infancy, it would be no trouble at all to remove her earrings for the course of a game. The rule would only be a difficulty for those girls who didn't have their ears pierced in infancy and were worried about them closing up.
Maybe the rule was invented by a Hispanic person who couldn't imagine why it would be any trouble at all for a girl old enough to compete in soccer to take her earrings out.
I think you should read
By Bob Leponge
Sun, 09/28/2014 - 11:59am
I think you should read the comment to which I was responding, which was not about earrings but about race-based admissions to Boston Latin School.
Bob is 100% right and, more
By Bob Murphy
Sat, 09/27/2014 - 8:49pm
Bob is 100% right and, more importantly, this post is about a terrible parent over lawyering kids' soccer, so try to maintain some levity and keep your eyes on the subject of the post.
In any event, I've been a lawyer for 10 years, during which time I've stumbled upon far too many people like this soccer parent. I don't blame anyone who thinks lawyers are terrible. I think so, too!
I guess it explains
By Kathode
Sat, 09/27/2014 - 8:49pm
why Boston Latin School is now mostly white and Asian, and not representative of our city population.
...which is a bloody damn
By lbb
Sat, 09/27/2014 - 9:24pm
...which is a bloody damn disgrace if you ask me. I'd make it a requirement that entering students must come from the Boston public schools - say, 3 years minimum. Take your stupid selfish "reverse racism" lawsuit and jam it.
Racism is racism
By anon
Sun, 09/28/2014 - 9:13am
That includes 'affirmative' (reverse) racism and legalized discrimination. Boston public schools have had 'progressive' policies in place, even court orders, for 40 years. They have not lacked funding, in fact many private schools (many of them excellent) get by with less funding per student vs public schools. Yet after 4 decades, close to half a century, some people are still complaining of 'oppression', poor funding, racism, etc. Yes, there is racism, and it's officially sanctioned: it involves 'benchmarks' (quotas) and actively, officially, and legally sanctioned discrimination against people based on their skin color, which in Boston means white. Some say there's too many white kids in this school or that school. They claim it's because 'people of color' are descriminated against. The irony is what I stated above, yes some kids are officially descriminated against, and have been for 40 years, but they aren't 'people of color', they are white. This trickles down to even socioeconomically deprived white kids, who don't qualify for programs such as METCO, because if their skin color. I won't even touch on the subject of Asians, and why they do well in the face of this alleged horrible descrimination and conspiracy against non-whites.
Reverse discrimination is
By kvn
Sun, 09/28/2014 - 11:45am
Reverse discrimination is discrimination. Boston Latin School is an entrance exam school. Busing in Boston years ago was supposed to level the playing field in public education 40 years ago. Just pass the test, no excuses. Just pass the test! Do you know what percentage of property taxes pay for the school system ? Why should people pay taxes, choose to send their children at an additional expense to a parochial school, to prepare them to score well on the exam, only to be excluded from gaining entry. How many people just send their kids to
say , Catholic Memorial , or BC High, and forgo the educational Russian roulette in getting into Latin School , opening up more opportunities for other children that may or not be as smart?
Boston Latin School is a
By lbb
Sun, 09/28/2014 - 8:50pm
Boston Latin School is a BOSTON PUBLIC SCHOOL. It's not intended for wealthy suburbanites who play lawyer-games to get themselves declared in-district five minutes before their kid hits ninth grade.
A taxpayer is a taxpayer. I
By kvn
Tue, 09/30/2014 - 9:36am
A taxpayer is a taxpayer. I am sure , if you checked the actual residence of every student in the BPS , you would find questionable machinations ,for whatever reasons.What happened to the grade 7 entrance to Latin School ?
I agree.
By Kathode
Sun, 09/28/2014 - 11:08am
Prospective applicants should come from BPS attendees.
Why should there be a minimum
By Lmo
Sun, 09/28/2014 - 1:10pm
Why should there be a minimum requirement of BPS enrollment prior to admission to the test schools? If you are a resident of Boston you should be able to apply to the test schools, regardless of what school you attended before. Residents of Boston should not be punished for sending their kids to private schools.
Race or ethnicity should not even be considered when applying to these schools. Acceptance should be objective and based on the test scores.
"Why should there be a
By lbb
Sun, 09/28/2014 - 8:51pm
"Why should there be a minimum requirement of BPS enrollment prior to admission to the test schools?"
Because of rich suburbanites with no connection to Boston who play games to get their kids "in district" shortly before it's time for them to enter ninth grade, funny coincidence that.
If you are talking about a
By Lmo
Sun, 09/28/2014 - 11:03pm
If you are talking about a residency requirement; 3 years minimum, that is one thing. But the children shouldn't be required to attend a BPS.
It's an exam school, not a
By kvn
Sun, 09/28/2014 - 10:25am
It's an exam school, not a core sample.
the WTF is in the other parent's responses
By anon
Sat, 09/27/2014 - 1:15pm
So. Much. Pearl. Clutching.
"I would occasionally ask folks if they wanted to be sent links to pictures and articles of girls suffering major injuries from playing with earrings, but never got any takers."
Because they don't exist?
https://www.google.com/search?q=earring+injuries+s...
Looks like a whole lot of people think the rule is bullshit.
The issue is that it is a rule...
By whyaduck
Sat, 09/27/2014 - 6:10pm
you may think it silly, and yes it may be bullshit, but the rule is the rule (and a well establish state wide rule, as cited in the post).
What happened is that the little girl got her ears pierced and when one gets ears pierced, you need to leave the studs in for a period of time.
Now I am not sure why 1) a seven year old needs pierced ears and 2) why they are even playing soccer. But that is just me. Because the parents, for some reason, did not anticipate this issue, that is their problem not the league's problem.
You really don't know why a 7
By Hyde_Parker
Sat, 09/27/2014 - 7:02pm
You really don't know why a 7-year-old is playing soccer? For reals??
Yes, 7-year olds don't need
By PeterGriffith5
Sun, 09/28/2014 - 10:08am
Yes, 7-year olds don't need adult organized , managed sports.
At one time, young children simply went out and "played". They were able to use imagination and take the first steps in learning consensus building as the group arrived at what it wanted to do for that afternoon.
Imagine how empowering it would be if children could navigate their own "recreation time" instead of feeding parental egoes? They might actually experience that there are people from different backgrounds and learn to interact with said people without the omnipresent filter of parental protection.
Ear piercing
By Felicity
Sat, 09/27/2014 - 9:25pm
No one needs to get their ears pierced. Little girls get their ears pierced because they want to at that age.
I was 6 when I got mine pierced, all of my friends got them pierced around the same age. It's not like getting a tattoo. It's a teensy near-invisible hole. It's not painful.
I've been informed that it's
By anon
Sat, 09/27/2014 - 11:09pm
I've been informed that it's a cultural thing -- some parents want their baby girls' ears pierced pretty much out of the womb. My mother made me wait till I was 15. Started playing field hockey soon after and unbeknownst to me and my parents ahead of time, was required to take them out and therefore the piercings didn't heal properly. After the season was over I had them redone, but you can't pierce them in the same spot, so now they are uneven and as a result I don't wear earrings. Not a big deal to me since I don't really care, but some girls / women do.
Why can't lawyers just stick
By anon
Sun, 09/28/2014 - 12:11am
Why can't lawyers just stick to being difficult in court and not cause a ruckus in mundane things like youth soccer? So relentless
Holy Heck!
By MomT
Sun, 09/28/2014 - 12:36pm
Stupidity! It wasn't a medically necessary procedure. Kids can wait until the end of the soccer season (which is called ear piercing season). What a poor example to set for your child.
Parents are the worst part of youth sports
By merlinmurph
Mon, 09/29/2014 - 11:16am
Talk to anybody that is involved in organizing youth sports - coaches, refs, etc. The kids are the easy part. As this lawyer-parent displays, the parents are the worst part of youth sports. They are constantly asking for exceptions, asking to have practice to be moved to accomodate them, yelling at refs, etc. The stories are endless.
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