Army Man Uproar

I wasn’t planning to post today, but dang, this got me fired up.

Last week a 9 year-old boy’s parents in Caro, Michigan sent him to school with decorated birthday cupcakes for the whole class. The decoration? A green plastic toy army soldier on each cupcake.

The Offending Cupcake            Photo: Facebook/WTOL11

My first reaction? “What a great fast and easy and cheap way to decorate cupcakes for a birthday! You can get a whole bag of those soldiers at the dollar store for, like, a buck!”

Apparently, the teacher and principal didn’t see it that way. They removed the soldiers before giving the cupcakes out to the students. For the complete story, click here: http://www.toledonewsnow.com/story/21547930/student-causes-cupcake-controversy-at-caro-school

The story states that the principal felt it was “‘insensitive’ considering recent gun-related tragedies”, including the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary.

WTF?

What does a green plastic toy of a WWII (or maybe even WWI?) army soldier with a gun presumably protecting our country have to do with mentally unstable people breaking laws with guns?

I first saw this on a local news station’s Facebook newsfeed. This was my comment:

I think I would expect the school to over-react to these. But I would probably take them in anyway just to p*ss off the school. And since when is an image of a soldier defending our country offensive!

We don’t want guns in schools–Totally Agree.

We don’t want mentally unstable kids planning to bring guns into schools–Agree.

We need to teach younger kids that talking about bringing guns to school isn’t a funny joke–Agree.

We need to discipline kids who talk about playing with Hello Kitty bubble guns, eat their Pop-Tarts into gun-shapes, and remove toy army men?–That is going too far.

Photo: DailyCaller.com

We have to teach our kids what is acceptable and what is not. We have to teach them context and satire and parody. Even the FCC has problems with these concepts sometimes. I am still trying to teach my husband not to make bomb jokes at airport security or drug jokes at the Canadian border.

If these were my son’s birthday treats, I would be very angry. I would have to make a point that both M’s grandfathers were both in the Army (one in WWII and one in Vietnam) and fought proudly for this great country we live in. By the way, a country where we have freedom of speech. And the freedom to bear arms.

And, another point I would make, is that the military, guns and all, is a necessary and noble career choice. Would these cupcakes be allowed on career day?

And don’t anyone try to turn this into a political debate. (Remember, this is my blog and I have ultimate veto power over comments!) Sure, the President has brought banning assault rifles into the forefront of the media. But Sandy Hook happened, and people in his party concerned about this issue rightfully told him now was the time to approach it. I get that. Just like when 9-11 happened, George W. Bush used it as an excuse to finish a war his father started (whoops, I am being overly preachy now). But I got that too. You have to strike while the iron is hot, so they would say.

I would be offended if someone brought in cupcakes with Spongebob on them. I hate that guy! But I wouldn’t remove him.

So, in conclusion, enjoy America, learn that sometimes a toy is just a toy, and don’t judge cupcakes so harshly that were probably made by a very tired mom at 11PM at night after a long day of work, who didn’t have the time or energy to put little eyes and cookie mouths on the cupcakes to turn them into politically correct teddy bears.