Napalm Citizens

Many years ago, I worked teaching a high school marching band that included a young trumpet player who was having a certain amount of difficulty. He was no less coordinated or talented than his peers, but he had some behavioral problems. All of us on staff tried our best to guide him. When he focused and tried, he actually did fairly well. When he gave up on himself, he was prone to bouts of hopelessness and anger.

After the season was over – in fact, it was at a meeting to unveil the following year’s marching band show concept –  I met his mother, and realized why he was having the difficulties that he was. In a one-on-one conversation with her after the meeting was over, the student sat on a step just outside the school building while I tried to explain to his mother what I thought, that when he tried he did well. Her reaction was to gesture his way with her face in a sneer. 

“That kid? He’s a terrible kid!“

My heart sunk in my chest as deeply as his face sunk into the hands he was using to prop up his chin. Suddenly, I knew what caused him so much consternation.

Of course, the whole reason his mother and I were having the one-on-one conversation after the meeting was because she wanted to continue pursuing a line of criticism that she started in the middle of the group discussion. To be sure, I am being generous by calling her thoughts criticism. More accurately, it was a tirade. She started by raising her hand and, presuming to speak for the band students, opined about the show concept and costumes we had just revealed, “This is a terrible idea. Why are you forcing the kids to do this? No one wants to.“

The band director quickly stepped in to save us all from more embarrassment, but the angry mother continued to snipe throughout the rest of the meeting, making loud asides to the constantly eye-rolling person she brought with her, for moral support, I suppose. I will admit to being rather upset by their reaction, but honestly, I was mostly confused. Never in the many years of creating and presenting marching band shows had I ever had a parent publicly stand up and call it “terrible.” I knew that she had an ongoing beef with the band director, and my guess was he was not the only teacher or administrator at the high school to bear the brunt of her objections. But I also naïvely thought a little conversation about how supportive I was of her son’s efforts might soften her up. Instead, I ended up trapped in that even more awkward moment when she threw her own son under the bus right in front of him with the same zeal with which she threw the proverbial hand grenade into the middle of our band meeting.

Parenting and politics crossed my mind together when I read a recent article about “lawnmower parents.“ By now we are all familiar with the term “helicopter parents” to describe those parents who hover ever-present over their children, worrying, and fretting, even once they have leave for college. Lawnmower parents, then, are a more recent phenomenon, a group of parents who seek to “mow over“ any obstacles or difficulties that might be in their child’s path, hoping to create a stress-free and challenge-free life for them. 

Now that I think back on the angry parent who came to that band meeting with the idea of blowing it up, I would like to suggest another category parent, “The Napalm Parent.“ These are the parents who, when they feel that they or their children have been slighted in someway, seek to blow up and burn down the supposed offender or the institution to which he or she belongs. Like napalm itself, they are explosive, flammable, toxic, and indiscriminate. Their only purpose is to destroy and leave nothing in its place. Though there may not be many of them, there are always a few everywhere. In band booster meetings, in the PTA, in school board meetings. We’ve known about them for years and have seen a few in action, especially in and around competitive sports, of course. I mean, try being a Little League coach – or worse, an umpire – these days.

I guess it should come as no surprise to me to realize that there is such a thing as “the Napalm Citizen.” These are the ones who latch on to some political or social topic and become so enraged that the only solution they see is to blow things up. And like actual napalm, they don’t care who they burn in the process, even if it means themselves. And yes, the “Napalm Coworker” is not far behind. It’s the winner-take-all, “no surrender, no survivors” principle. Compromise, understanding, empathy, are all anathema to the Napalm People. 

Are there many of them? My suspicion is no, there are not. Otherwise, every day would be utter chaos in the world. But the ones that do exist make a disproportionate amount of the heat and noise. The trick for the rest of us is to not become like them, to not fight fire with fire. It’s natural to want to, and it often seems like the best defense. But should we not relax, breathe, keep our heads even when they don’t, and show the greater traits of restraint and respect? Most likely, yes. The Napalmers will continue to roar, declare victory even when the facts of the matter are nothing heir favor. But we, the level-headed, should not take up the case, nor chase them down their rabbit holes, and we should most definitely insist on operating on facts, even when the Napalmers barely even acknowledge their existence. The Napalmers will at some point find themselves on the outside, and with no voice. They can then adjust, or speak to the wind.