In her efforts to be more confused than the dementia patient currently pretending to be in charge of the USA, Her Saintliness quoth:
We aren’t making it compulsory and you don’t have to punish the kids but you really should punish the kids.
OK.
I’ll do you one better.
I’ve told my children that they don’t have to wear the damn things if they don’t want to, I’ve encouraged them not to wear them, and if the teachers, principal, or any fat slob bureaucrat at the Ministry of Education has a problem with that, they can call me personally.
Please, by all means.
They have no science backing up their claims that masks prevent infection or transmission.
They’re winging it, doing anything they can to imagine they are in charge, and they know it.
The last thing they want is a legal challenge.
BONUS:
It's a view backed up by Remuera Intermediate Principal Kyle Brewerton who told AM for the most part there will be no issue.
"The kids are pretty comfortable wearing them and there's no real problem."
You mean to say that kids take their cues from the adults in charge and the other kids around them?
Real deep thinkers we’ve got running the shop here in En-Zed.
The problem, Mr. Principal, is that this is exactly how it becomes normalized to go through your day with a festering petri-dish on your face, unable to have normal interactions with other people because half of their face is hidden behind a piece of infectious trash.
Telling me the kids are comfortable is the whole problem, bucko.
In twenty years these “comfortable” kids will need trigger warnings on a human face and a hazmat suit to walk outside.
The psychological damage is going to be unrecoverable in some of these young ones.
Not one of these blithering morons has given that a second thought while patting themselves on the back for their hypochondria.
We got rid of the guy with dementia in the last election. The guy we have now is a little older than I am, but he’s still capable of higher-order thinking. Watching what’s been salvaged from the orange criminal under this guys watch gives me a sliver of hope. The other guy barely got through the manwomancamerapersontv midterm exam.