Dad Pulls Son From School After Teachers Made Him Sing The “Hippy” Song ‘Big Yellow Taxi’
The dad is also sick of his kid being forced to dress like a hippy.
Over the last few years, a subtle shift in environmental protests has occurred: no longer is the climate change protest being led by elected officials. Now, it’s being led by kids.
As a result, schools have become a hotbed of political activity, with the Global Strike for Climate — the biggest climate protest in history — being organised by a highschooler, Greta Thunberg, and being led around the world by students.
On the whole, this new direction in political protesting has been greeted with open arms. On the whole but not wholly, of course, because if there’s one thing that boomers hate, it’s young people trying to stop the planet from literally catching on fire.
Case in point: a Gold Coast dad, Matt, is hitting the news for pulling his son out of school after the boy was asked to dress up “like a hippy” and sing inappropriate “hippy songs” like Joni Mitchell’s ‘Big Yellow Taxi’.
In the radio interview where Matt first shared his story, he bemoaned the fact that his kids have had to see signs protesting the practice of water harvesting. But the final straw was the day his son came home and said that his teachers had organised dress-ups for the forthcoming Green Day, and that students were learning the words to Mitchell’s environmentally-minded pop hit.
Matt’s exact qualms are a little hard to parse. So it’s probably a good idea to quote his issue verbatim.
“Singing these songs, that are to do with climate change, and promoting dressing up as hippies as some sort of way to show that if you want to look after the environment…” Matt said before trailing off. “And that’s one thing that I really don’t like about the uh, greens movement, these types of people, is their arrogance. And this sense of having a monopoly of caring for the environment.”
The highlight of the interview, however, comes a little later, when the hosts play Matt ‘Big Yellow Taxi’ and ask him if this is the song that his son was singing.
“Yep, yep, that’s the one,” Matt says, sternly, like he’s identifying a perpretator in a line-up.
“I like that song,” one of the hosts admits, a little sheepishly.
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