Last year, I was walking down the sidewalk, pushing my daughter in the stroller, when a small group of kids approached.  They looked to be in junior high: too old to be cowed by the very presence of an adult, and too young to stab me with any mortal force.  The kids – about seven or eight of them – were walking home from school.  The boys in the group were hooting and screaming and generally acting like they had rabies or Mad Cow.  I approached, and they approached, and we approached each other, but they never slowed the screaming.  My presence, as an adult, had no effect on their behavior.  I thought it might scare my daughter – and I was also offended that my adultness had no effect on them – and so, when our paths converged on the sidewalk, I stopped and said: “Can someone please make your friends hush?” 

The kids were shocked.  I might as well have been a talking tree.  The boys stopped braying for a moment, but quickly shared choice words with me when they were too far for me to correct without looking like an old corkscrew.  Granted, there were no parents around, and I was a teacher at a military school for boys, where I regularly made young men do pushups for far less, but still, I wondered: Why do I not do this more?  This column from Newsweek explores why we don’t discipline other people’s children as much anymore, and asks if we shouldn’t bring it back.  It’s a question of pluralism, of moral authority, and of shared/not shared values. 

But, in this culture, moral authority – rather than self-righteousness – shocks Americans of all ages, which is, I think, perfect reason for wielding it.