Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Save the Ta-Tas

Recently my son Michael and his friend Zach were reprimanded at school for wearing pink bracelets that said "Save the Ta-Tas". They wore them during October which is Breast Cancer Awareness Month and I didn't see any problem with them.

The administration at Walnut Creek Middle School saw things quite differently. They confiscated the bracelets and were told they could not have them back. Apparently the administration felt the word Ta-Tas was offensive.

I started wondering why they felt these bracelets were so offensive? Would they have preferred the correct anatomical word "breast"? What if the bracelet has read "Save the Prostrate" or "Save the Lungs", would things have been handled differently?

Raising kids with the knowledge of cancer and ways to prevent it is important. I was quite proud of my son for having the guts to wear the pink bracelet. We have lost people we love to cancer and he knows very well how it devastates a family.

We have much bigger issues in the middle school than the word "ta-ta". As a tax payer and a parent I am sure time confiscating bracelets could have been better spent.

To order your own Ta-Tas wearables go to http://www.savethetatas.com/catalog/accessories/

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sure the administration didn't take them because they were being immature and distruptive trying to make all the attention about them and not really the issue of cancer at all - are you sure??

Try to handle 1,000 young people who find anything they can to cause a commotion. As serious as this issue is you can't expect a 13 year old to take it serious when you call it Ta Tas or at least the majority of students within a middle school.

I would ask your son and his friend exactly what they were doing before being asked to give them to administration - really.

Jim said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Jim said...

Kim, I am sorry that the world has lost their moral compass. I am sure if he wanted attention, he wouldn't have chosen a pink bracelet, no matter what the words on it. Knowing what your family has gone through and that you are the chair for one of the local "Race for the Cure" chapters, I would challenge those less aware to be more trusting of your son's intentions and less critical of your family. Unless this "poster" can come forward, identify themself as a witness to this outrageous and harmful act, then they shouldn't be firing across your family's bow. What your son did was wore an object that supports the cure for a terrible disease, and if in the course of that act, he caused some kids to laugh, I say he should be commended.

Your point was well made in your post. What word should it have used. We do have far more serious issues to deal with - hunger, bullying, cancer to name a few.

Why not let a little humor back in our world? We continue to focus so heavily on words, which in many instances, this being one, are not meant to harm, but due to the perverted way that people look at them, are transformed into tools of destruction. However, people go around every day using acceptable words in far meaner ways and nothing is said or done about it. Words like: Fat, Stupid, Ugly, Brainless, Useless, You can't join, You're not as good as, etc.

Ta Ta's - where does anyone get the idea that is a harmful sentiment? Especially when it is on a bracelet that is supporting breast cancer. Maybe we should be looking more at the interpretations of sentiments, as much as we look at the sentiments themselves.

Refocus world.