Men are not mothers. Men are fathers. Fathers are men. Mothers are women. If the primary caregiver is a man, he is a father.
The following note was sent home to parents of K-2 students from the librarian at Alpine Crest Elementary school, located in Hamilton County.
“As a librarian, it is my responsibility to introduce students to a variety of texts and genres. I encourage our learners to discover the similarities and celebrate the differences of those with whom we share the world. With Mother's Day approaching, I'd like to highlight this special role, but I am sensitive to the fact that not all students live with a mother. As such, I'm planning a lesson that celebrates those who fill the motherly roles in our lives: those who make our lunches, who kiss away our hurts, and who teach us to fly. I acknowledge that this lesson could bring up big feelings with your student and lead to sensitive conversations at home. Below is a list of texts I will be using as read aloud to the class in K-2. Should you choose to have your student opt out of this lesson, an alternative assignment and location will be arranged. Please contact me at xxxx@hcde.org by Friday, May 5, if you would like your student to receive an alternative assignment and location.
Read Aloud Book Selections:
Stella Brings the Family by Miriam B Schiffer:
Mother Bruce by Ryan T. Higgins.
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Nestled in a quiet neighborhood in Red Bank is a small community school where thousands of children in Hamilton County have been educated. This school has a sweet spirit, a wonderful reputation and a family friendly atmosphere. "The Times They Are A-Changin'" for the itty-bitty children that now attend this once wonderful school.
According to their website, “"Reading changes your life.” You don’t say? What kind of life change is this librarian trying to accomplish?
I have questions.
Did the librarian try to contact the parents in any other way besides a note in the backpack of a kindergartner? We all know notes don’t always make it home to parents.
What is the alternative lesson plan? Would it be at the other end of the spectrum? Is a preacher coming into the school to preach on the biblical definition of gender? “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.”
Why are opted out students, whose parents believe in traditional family values, going to be moved to another location so as to not disturb the supposed feelings of others?
Did this librarian celebrate other holidays in this way? Easter: did she read about the resurrection of Christ? Christmas: did she read about Christ’s birth and the way of salvation? Good Friday: maybe she showed the little children a movie like the Passion of the Christ? Will she read books about women to the children in celebration of Father’s Day?
Does she read books that support traditional values such as pro-life, anti-globalism, borders, legal immigration, freedom of speech, capitalism, smaller government, pro-God, pro-traditional marriage and family or does she just focus on books that support a worldview that is anti-traditional values?
Here are a few highlights from the books that were referenced in the librarians note:
Stella Brings the Family by Miriam B Schiffer:
“We are going to have a celebration for Mother’s day….but Stella had two dads, everyone else had a mother, Howie had TWO! Stella would be the ONLY one without a mother at the Mother’s Day party. Stella worried about the party when she should have been worrying about other things. All week Stella’s appetite was gone.”
Mother Bruce by Ryan T. Higgins.
Mother Bruce (the cover of the book says Mother Goose, with a big X through Goose and the name Bruce written over it.) This story is about a big black bear named Bruce, who likes to eat eggs. He brought some eggs home but alas, they hatched early. Bruce tells the baby hatchlings, “Go away, I am not your mother, I liked you better when you were eggs.” He even roars at them, trying to frighten them away. “It didn’t work. Goslings always follow their mother, even if SHE is a HE and HE is a bear.”
We all know there is a special place in God’s heart for children.
“Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” Mark 10:13-16
Please pray for the children of Hamilton County. The schools are coming after their hearts.
“It would be better for him to have a millstone hung around his neck and to be thrown into the sea than to cause one of these little ones to stumble.” Luke 17:2.
Rebecca Day
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To All Stakeholders,
I am here to remind you today that you were elected by the people, for the people. Parents, teachers, counselors, elected officials, pastors, and many others are reaching out to me daily about multiple issues with our Hamilton County School system. The most recent, being a librarian at Alpine Crest Elementary sending a note home with K-2 graders telling parents that she is doing a lesson plan for Mother’s Day with two specific books. I was on the phone all night and have been all day with phone calls and responding to messages from people who are not in support of this and expect their representatives to do something about it. The following books were listed in the note that was sent home with the students. Please take time to listen to the Read Alouds of the books.
Mother Bruce
https://youtu.be/syj8LhWi7k4
Stella Brings the Family
https://youtu.be/uKZXuPBhX_Y
I am reaching out on behalf of the community. Parents do not want their young children indoctrinated. It is not the teacher's place to have this discussion with young children. The second book in particular, is about a child who has two dads. Why not use this book for Father’s Day? What is the alternate lesson plan? What is the lesson plan that is being taught that is not alternate? Why do students who have traditional families (whose parents will opt out (if this note even gets home to their parents) have to be sent to an alternate location for an alternate lesson? Excluded for traditional family values? Why are we even having this discussion about young children? Why not use these books for Father's Day? Was there another form of communication with parents of students who did not get this note to their parents? How much of this is happening in Hamilton County Schools that parents are not notified and given the opportunity to opt out? (I can answer that question. It is happening all over the district all the time).
I’m a former teacher who resigned, as some of you know. I can’t imagine having a lesson plan discussing any of this even with middle schoolers I used to teach. This is not the teacher's place. As elected officials, you know you are appointed by God and you should be doing everything you can to keep children safe in their learning environment. I do not see this from many of you at all, and I personally, as well as the people I represent, am looking to hear from you on specific issues including LGBTQ curriculum and clubs in schools, as well as teachers who are promoting it. The community is interested in hearing about topics that include Social Emotional Learning (Cultural Marxism) and the failing DEI initiative.
I hope to get a response from each one of you. This librarian could use books to represent women who are moms that may not have given birth to their children; such as, grandmothers, aunts, stepmoms, adoptive moms, or any women that may be a mom to a child… but instead books were chosen to represent men in the place of mothers. Both books. This is not a lesson to help students feel included. It obviously excludes a large representation of students whose parents do not want their children to be taught these topics in this school district.
If you do not address this, you will continue to see the mass exodus of teachers who want nothing more than to teach children and students whose parents will not stand for the indoctrination of their children.
Have a Blessed Day.
Tonya Dodd
Moms for Liberty Hamilton, County TN
Chapter Chair
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Ms. Day asked, “What kind of life change is this librarian trying to accomplish?” While I cannot speak for that librarian, I would hope that they are trying to accomplish the life change of not having children grow up to be unaware of the fact that not everyone is exactly like them. The life change of children knowing that there is a great big world outside of “a quiet neighborhood in Red Bank” and that to properly navigate it they will need some sort of understanding and knowledge of society and the people that make up that society.
I would hope that eventually these students would realize that just because grandma doesn’t like LGBTQ+ people, people of other religions, or any other demographic that she has judged to be unworthy, that doesn’t mean that those people don’t exist or that they do not deserve the love that she (in defiance of the instructions given to her by her God) refuses to bestow. I hope those children will learn the compassion and respect for other people that they may not be able to learn at home.
Lastly, I hope that any of those children who are LGBTQ+, raised in another religion, or are “othered” by whatever they happen to be, will realize that they are not alone in this world, that they can choose family who will love, respect, and support them, and that they should not care one whit about people who “love the sinner, but hate the sin.”
Jennifer Bethwell
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Uh oh, it looks like there might be trouble at that bastion of liberal indoctrination, better known as Alpine Crest Elementary. You know, the elementary school in a mostly conservative town, in a conservative county, in a conservative state (Notice the sarcasm). The same school that teachers had to spend dozens of hours cataloging all their books at the beginning of the school year because some people, who don’t believe in parental rights in other children’s choice of reading materials, want to make their choices the only choice for every child in school.\
In the week before Mother’s day the teachers will be talking about mostly traditional moms and their relationship with their children. The librarian there wants to add to that teaching a little about non-traditional parental dynamics by reading excerpts to the children from two books that show that there are more than one type of raising children. She has given notice to parents, at least the ones that pay attention to their children’s education, and has made arrangements to accommodate the parent’s choice in this matter. All according to the laws that were forced on them by book banning special interest groups.
My grandchildren and my tiny cousins who have and are attending this wonderful school have nothing but praise about the teachers and staff, including the librarian. These wonderful teachers and staff do a fantastic job teaching, and taking care of their students. They work hard for their students. I feel better knowing that they, on occasion, show their students different life choices. I feel that it will encourage their students to be kind, to not grow up and bully those who are different from them. But most importantly, they show the students who are living in those non-traditional parenting lifestyles that there are other children out there living the same way and that they are not alone. I guess that offends some people.
Thomas Blanks
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I sometimes have to marvel at the haughty rhetoric of snap-judgments made in this county over issues that are completely nonexistent. Here we have parents and some sort of liberty watch association (who you can also buy polos at their online store from for a cool $65 plus shipping) calling out a pair of library books that are some sort of silver bullets which will finally kill off motherhood. I bought and read both books off Amazon and here is what the aforementioned misinformers neglect to tell you.
Mother Bruce is the story of a grumbly bear who has the misfortune of having a half dozen goose eggs hatch while the mother is out and they instantly think the bear is the mother despite the obvious physical differences. What follows is the classic fish-out-of-water story where the goslings and bear are in mismatched plot devices. For example the little goslings are in swim trunks and playing in a tiny kiddie pool while Bruce the bear dons an inner-tube ready to splash in, all 1,000 pounds of him…..har har. Comedy scenarios where the bear and the goslings sizes are used for comedy fodder. That’s it. No attacks on motherhood. No fashy Ocasio-Cortez talking points. No sneaky links to liberal election campaigns. Just a bear and some goslings getting into wacky situations, the sort of material that a 6-year-old finds hilarious.
Stella Brings the Family is about a child without a mother to bring to class for a mother’s only event. Living in fear of what other liberty hawks might think, the child is nearly crippled emotionally before bringing their entire family to class and lovingly announce that sometimes when you don’t have a mother, other people help raise and love you the same. My nephews have no mother, and I love them dearly. And if they were tasked to bring a mother to class, I’d gladly go in her place and illustrate to others that sometimes traditional families aren’t automatic in life, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t have family in their corner.
Why would these liberty hawk association people sit in judgment on others without understanding the issue? Why do they claim to represent the whole community when nobody has freely elected or entrusted them to do so? Why are they “demanding responses from each of you” and what does that even mean?
Maybe if I buy one of their $65 polos to support their group (I warn you, their social media sites are Q-Anon levels of conspiracy), then I can get some more clarity on why they think a couple of benign kiddie hilarity books are imploding motherhood forever.
Bill Thomas
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As a retired public children’s librarian and private elementary school librarian, mother and grandmother of five, I find it demeaning, undemocratic and incredulous that our public school librarians and book collections are being criticized by groups claiming to interested in children, liberty and Christianity.
Librarians and teacher are highly educated and book collections provide a means for children to learn and love reading. They are exposed to different genres (mystery, fiction, fantasy, nonfiction) to help them develop a joy of reading.
Our teachers, librarians and children need our support in public schools, not hateful vitriol and criticism. All children deserve to read and have choices in learning to read.
Banning books denies our children an opportunity to learn about their world. It is anti-Christian to be hateful and demonize families, teachers, librarians, anyone including those that may not reflect their beliefs. Finally, it is anti-liberty, anti-freedom and anti-democratic to ban books.
Wendy W. Wilkins