Hempstead Police
Annika McKenzie is the Hempstead, New York mother who beat a 22-year veteran middle school teacher unconscious this past week. According to reports, McKenzie claimed that the teacher “put her hands” on McKenzie’s daughter earlier in the day and the agitated parent went to the school to retaliate.
The details surrounding the incident between the student and teacher is still unclear, but folks are adamant about justifying McKenzie’s actions based on the allegations made by the 12-year-old student. Basically, people are saying that if you put your hands on another person’s child then you should be prepared for things to get ugly. I understand the idea that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, but whatever happened to “the village” concept of raising children?
Like a mama bear protecting her cub from hungry lions at dinner time, parents turn to basic instinct, bypassing all logic when they suspect that their child is being mistreated. This is expected. Ask any parent to what extent they would be willing to go to protect their children and the answer will probably “to the ends of the earth” and “to the death.” I am in total agreement with that as a parent.
However, I do not have any respect for a parent who turns a blind eye to their child’s bad behavior and focuses solely on the action of the village, in this case, the actions of the teacher. Most of us wouldn’t have served the teacher with a brutal beating, but even still, how many times have you gone to your kid’s school with your mouth all twisted up saying, “Who did what to my baby and why?” Maybe not in those exact words, but really, how many times have you been convinced (mostly by your child) that a teacher, principal, school security guard, aunt, big cousin or whoever they pinpointed, had it out for your child?How many times have you forgone disciplining your kid and instead reprimanded the adult who had the audacity to put your misbehaving child in line?
I’ve never really had to say it out loud, but I remember thinking to myself, don’t put your hands on my kid as my much older nephew lightly spanked my 2-year-old during a tantrum he had very recently. My kid was acting the fool, but I was more concerned with why my nephew thought he could say or do something about it. It was at that moment that I realized it would be silly of me to continue to believe that I can raise respectable children at home without any reinforcement from the environment in which they will grow up.
What I’m saying is, each time you tell an adult they do not have the authority to put your kid in place, even when the situation calls for a light reprimand, you are teaching that child to only have respect for their parents. If you are raising your children in an isolated area where the population is made up of all the members of your family, this reasoning is feasible, but in real life this is dangerous, especially for Black youth.
At the rate in which Black youth are being incarcerated and/or gunned down by police, we should be grateful that our extended family and school teachers are the ones helping our children curve bad behavior before prison or a trigger-happy police officer does it first. By no means do I expect parents to allow strangers to pull their kids to the side and begin spanking them in the street for misbehaving. Never. But the truth is no matter how much we teach them at home, none of our little angels are beyond reproach and it is time we accept that.
Whether you set boundaries for your kid or not, there are rules in this society and the people of this society will hold your child accountable for their actions. It is also important to note that in a situation where your child’s behavior is in question, correcting the action of the adult checking your kid isn’t as important as correcting the action of your child. Parents can’t be there to deflect all negative encounters those in the village will have with their child. But wouldn’t it be a great feeling to know that there are people in the village who are not afraid to keep the kid you are grooming for excellence respectfully reminded of the high standards that you hold them to?
We still don’t know what happened in the classroom between McKenzie’s daughter and her teacher, but McKenzie missed a golden opportunity to teach her child a valuable lesson about respect and conflict resolution and to report the alleged actions of the teacher. Instead, her child will navigate the world convinced that she can do, no wrong and the people in her village better not tell her (or her mother for that matter) any different.
