Our yesterdays were better days

To the editor:

A zero-tolerance policy is nothing more than a restriction on people thinking for themselves.

In 2009, a girl was suspended because she took an empty shotgun shell to school, authorities considered it dangerous. A boy wanted to eat with his Cub Scout flatware at lunch time, he was a possible candidate for reform school. An 8-year-old boy chewed a Pop Tart into the shape of a gun in Maryland, you guessed it, suspension.

When I was a kid, my brothers and I played with toy guns pretending to be cowboys. By today's standards, we'd be waiting in straight jackets for psychoanalysis. Those who mess with young minds needlessly may have a touch of psychosis in themselves because most of this stuff is just kid's stuff and there's nothing unhealthy about it.

The elderly of today came from a time when more people thought as individuals and laughed at silly policies rather than incorporating them into their lives or into a system, at a time when teachers could set their own rules and opt for common sense in the behavioral department.

When these students of 'the old school” are gone, the zero-tolerance mentality people will be unhampered to follow their mindless illogical norms. Pity those they influence.

Maybe someday, nonsense will again be recognized as silly rather than as a dangerous character trait and over-indoctrinated adults will allow kids to be kids again.

Today's society suffers much from paralysis by analysis.

Rosemary Weydert

Winthrop