I typically and deliberately write to an audience of parents of tweens and teens or to professionals who work with tweens and teens. However, I am addressing this post, the first since my summer hiatus, to my aunt and my own mother who circulated this e-mail:
Don’t pick up any plastic bottles that may be lying in your yards or in the gutter, etc.
1. a plastic bottle with a cap.
2. a little Drano.
3. a little water.
4. a small piece of foil.
5. Disturb it by moving it; and BOOM – No fingers left and other serious effects to your face, eyes, etc.
People are finding these “bombs” in mailboxes and in their yards, just waiting for you to pick it up intending to put it in the trash. But, you’ll never make it! It takes about 30 seconds to blow after you move it.
The e-mail goes on to say that Snopes.com, an exceptionally good Web site that exists to prove or disprove these viral e-mail rumors, confirms its veracity. That is true…sort of.
Two “Works Bombs” were found on lawns in a small town in Michigan and similar devices were used to blow up three mailboxes in a different small town in Massachusetts. In both sets of instances, the culprits were never found.
I do not object to the warning, and I certainly do not want individuals to be hurt by explosions (which is why I, like all of the major Fire Departments, opposed the expansion of the Arizona’s legal fireworks definition to include much more powerful devices).
I object to three things:
- It blames “kids” – not “some kids” or “a few kids,” but “kids” – as a homogeneous and unified group.
- It indicts the entirety of the Nation’s kid population without any proof that kids were behind either of these instances.
- It treats two separate incidents as a trend.
All of this is related to one of my central tenets: misinformation and hysteria creates a distance between adults and kids that thwarts real, positive and meaningful communication.
Did some kids in two small towns replicate an experiment from a science class and create some damage in those two small towns? My guess is that they did. Have kids been blowing up stuff since the advent of explosives? Absolutely. Moreover, society seems to think that blowing stuff up can be pretty funny (see Syd Chaplin’s 1921 film “King, Queen and Joker,” a 1972 episode of M*A*S*H entitled “Cowboy,” and virtually every Tom and Jerry cartoon). But it is not an epidemic, the behavior is not unique to this generation of young people, and you need not regard every kid with suspicion (OK, Mom and Aunt Barb?).
If you suspect that a kid in your life is experimenting with mixing chemicals, ask him or her about it. Find out what they are doing. Explain the dangers and consequences of it. If he or she is interested in science, encourage that and find safe arenas where he or she can explore that interest.
