Kat�s disgusted. She�s disgusted with a group of adults. In itself, that�s nothing novel. Kat�s often disgusted when she�s not elated. She is a fairly sensible child but she is a passionate teenager with a strong sense of what others should do. This time, however, I agree with her.

Kat is an aide for the kindergarten classes at Sunday school. Today they had a field trip to a senior citizens center. The kids have been working on a group of songs for several months and today the kindergarten through second graders went to the center to sing for the senior citizens. As is usual on field trips, they took several parents with them. It�s many of the parents that Kat is disgusted with.

Apparently, most of the parents viewed this field trip as an ordinary trip to see their kids perform. I�ve noted that parental performance behavior has been deteriorating over the years as videotaping the individual child takes precedence over recognizing group achievement and over letting people in the back see. Usually, however, that behavior results in jockeying between parents and among equals. According to Kat, the adults on this trip exhibited the same behavior but a young parent and an older person who has had a stroke and is in a wheelchair are not equals in this game. The older person loses almost every time because agility counts.

The trip was billed as an opportunity for the children to do a mitzvah. (Literally, a mitzvah is a commandment and visiting the sick is such a commandment although the term often is used in a broader sense to mean �good deed.�) The focus was supposed to be on what the children were doing for others�and the others in this case were not their parents.

In the brief time between getting home from work and going to stage crew, Kat talked about teaching, specifically teaching children. She pointed out that the parents, most of whom shoved and pushed and insisted on sitting in the front row as the children sang, did not support what was being taught. While it is nice for children to know that they are important, it is important for them to know that they are not always the focus of things. Letting them do for others is important. The focus should have been on the senior citizens. That focus means that they should have the choice seats. The parents should have been at the back, even if they could not see their own children clearly. She felt that the parents were not supporting the school by coming but, instead, were simply supporting their own children at the expense of others.

I am glad I was not on the trip. Unlike most of the teachers who went on the trip, I do not need the job. I would not have been silent. I would have told the parents even before we got off the bus that we appreciated their coming with us and their willingness to join us in the mitzvah by sitting at the back to allow the senior citizens to enjoy more fully what we were offering. They would have mumbled but most of them would have done it. I would have gone over and �reminded� the others. And then I would not have cared whether I received backing or not as they moaned, groaned, and complained to the head of the school or the rabbi that I was mean.

But Kat is just an aide, just a teenager. She is expected to stand up for right only when it is what the adults want to hear and she has limited power. I do not fault her for what happened.

But oh how I am going to enjoy watching her fly in a few years.

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