Parents in the United States may soon have to follow a dress code to drop off and pick up their kids from school, and uh, they have a meme to blame.
Antonio Parkinson, a state representative in Memphis, Tennessee, has proposed a school dress code – not for students, but for parents.
Side note: When it comes to school shopping… You are only one of two types of people.
Yep. Pyjamas at the school gate could be outlawed.
Because even though school mornings are a special kind of hell where approximately 1000 things must be done in just of couple of frantic hours, parents need to lift their game. Obviously.
After talking to people in his school district, Parkinson said he’d heard too many “horror stories” of how parents turn up to school.
“People wearing next to nothing. People wearing shirts or tattoos with expletives. People coming onto a school campus and cursing the principal or the teacher out. These things happen regularly,” Parkinson told TODAY.
“A principal I talked to told me a lady came into the office with her sleepwear on with some of her body parts hanging out. You got children coming down the hall in a line and they can possibly see this,” he said.
So yes, the proposed law wouldn’t just be about how parents dress at the school gate because Parkinson’s goal is to make parents aware of the “expected decorum” at school.
Parkinson told TODAY that the initiative started when he saw a meme – yes, really – on social media.
“[It] said something to the effect of ‘Breaking news: Due to the expected low temperatures, school leaders are telling parents to put on two pairs of pyjamas when they pick their kids up,” Parkinson said.
“That meme led to a conversation with one of my constituents during which I learned about some of her concerns about the way that parents dressed at school. That opened up a conversation, and I then got on the phone with some of the leaders in my district and learned how big of a problem it really was.”
As far as we can tell, Parkinson has not outlined what would be considered appropriate under the law. Could you just chuck on your trackies or are we talking smart-casual? What about those Lulelemon mums? What about dads?
Critics of the bill say it will unfairly target low income families and lawmakers should instead put their energy into improving the education children receive, but Parkinson insists he’s had lots of support.
We also have questions about how the law would be enforced.
Would there be a detention of rule-breaking parents? Could they be suspended from future drop offs or barred from parent teacher interviews? Maybe they won’t be required to chaperone school trips…
That sounds… worth it.
The bill is still being drafted, but could be voted on this year and if successful, implemented in 2020.
Whatever happens, there is at least one take away from this whole thing: In the wrong hands, a simple meme can be very, very dangerous.
What do you think of a dress code for parents? Do you have any pick up or drop off horror stories? Let us know in a comment.