The one where I complain about a Children’s T-Shirt

I was an OUTSTANDING English Student-both in college and in high school. While I make no claims at speaking in grammatically correct jargon all the time, there are some things that drive me absolutely insane.

“Ain’t.” Double Negatives [I haven’t never…or worse: I ain’t never]. Misuse of the there, their, and they’re. Or misuse of your and you’re. Basically just using language that makes you sound like an uneducated imbecile. Sorry. But there is no reason to speak to people and carry on a conversation like you’ve just walked out of a barn or something. Or is there?!

I was in Walmart the other night picking up a few groceries and browsing for a few birthday gifts. I moseyed my way over to the toddler clothes to check out the PJ’s {little man loves his jammies} and THIS is what I saw:

SERIOUSLY?! Recess don’t last forever…which breaks down into Recess do not last forever which is completely and totally incorrect.

Last time I checked, we weren’t teaching Ebonics in schools. We aren’t teaching our children to speak and spell and word sentences incorrectly. But we are selling it to them on Kid Friendly t-shirts and allowing them to assume that it is okay.

I was irate.

Maybe I am acting somewhat…ridiculous…about this, but it floored me that after all of the years and years and years that have been spent trying to force the idea of a better education-a quality education-on our children and youth and THIS is what we are marketing to them.

We complain about the Government and what they are doing to help the Educational Crisis in this country, but we sell these kind of things. And what’s worse is that people buy them. Not this mommy.

Call me crazy, call me ridiculous, call me whatever you want. But I absolutely refuse to allow my child to wear something like this. To support this kind of mentality-that it’s okay to speak however you want.

I know that he may not understand, and that the children who can read these shirts may not understand what’s incorrect about it, but I do. And I would hope that most semi-educated parents would. It just sends the wrong message. At least to me it does.

What are your thoughts? I would really love your feedback on this one. Is it just a kids t-shirt…nothing to be annoyed or frustrated about? Or does it send a frightening message that we’ve allowed improper jargon and slang to infiltrate our culture to the point of broadcasting it on children’s clothing?

Let me know what you think!