I know that in the US it is a common place thing in schools but i dont know much else. For example is pledging Mandatory or is done more out of tradition?
What ramifications, if any, would there be if you didn’t pledge allegiance to it?
do you still pledge allegiance as adults or is it like not going to mass after your confirmation (you stop when you leave school sort of thing)
Genuine curiosity and have tried to word it so I won’t cause offence.
31 comments
We had to do it in school when I was a kid in the 80s and 90s, but that was a private catholic school. My kids now in public school don’t say the pledge.
I thought it was stupid then.
Not mandatory. Traditional. No ramifications for not saying it. Adults don’t bother.
It’s traditional but not required. I have not came across an occasion to recite the pledge of allegiance since I left school.
It was and is mandatory in Texas public schools unless your parents write a note excusing you. There’s a Texas flag pledge too. My friends and I thought it was a dumb, meaningless ritual and waste of time. I still think this.
I have never said the pledge of allegiance since finishing high school and I really cannot foresee doing it.
It’s dumb. We only had to do it in elementary school (up to age 11 or so), but when I figured out it was not mandatory, I stopped saying it.
Haven’t been in a situation where people said it since I was a kid.
It was a school rule when I was in elementary school in the 1990s. I don’t know the consequences for not saying it because no one objected, but they couldn’t legally force a student to. We didn’t have to do it in highschool (secondary). Adults very rarely do it. I don’t think I’ve seen an adult do it since the time shortly after the 2001 terrorist attacks. A lot of people take the national anthem seriously, though, showing respect by standing silently or occasionally singing along, when it’s played at events.
> For example is pledging Mandatory or is done more out of tradition?
It’s not mandatory, it’s tradition.
> What ramifications, if any, would there be if you didn’t pledge allegiance to it?
Nothing. Maybe other kids in school might look at you funny but I specifically remember kids sitting though it or ignoring the whole thing. It’s unconstitutional for the school to compel that, for example. My kids’ school now doesn’t do it even.
> do you still pledge allegiance as adults or is it like not going to mass after your confirmation (you stop when you leave school sort of thing)
For the general public you’re not going to hear it much after leaving K-12 school. I’m almost 40 and can’t even think of the last time I heard it in an actual public context over the last 22 years (that’s not like on a TV show or movie).
I never thought anything of it because it was routine. Some teachers told everyone to stand, but it’s not mandatory. You might get weird looks but it’s illegal to punish someone for not participating.
It’s pretty much only done in schools and becomes less common the further along in school you are.
You can’t get in trouble for not saying it. Some teachers can be a little pushy about it, but if they try to force you to they could get in trouble so most will just respect your decision.
Overall it’s largely a non-issue
As an adult I think the only occasion that I’ve ever seen the pledge being used is at the start of a municipal meeting of officials. It’s not required for anyone to participate and there are no ramifications for abstaining.
It is a little weird that we ask children to do it in schools, but it could be argued that it’s done at the beginning of the day as a means to call order to the classroom and initiate the start of learning for the day. It’s reasonable to ask students to understand how to follow rules and be orderly in a group setting. Maybe there’s another verse that could be substituted, like the first verse of “Hey Ya” or “This Land is Your Land”.
It was said every morning at my school in early 2000s. Everyone stood. Only like one edgy kid didn’t stand and got yelled at by the teacher.
Not really a reason not to. You didn’t really think about it happening back then. It was fine. I had to say it recently for something but I forget what- but that’s the first time in like 20 years.
“Mandatory” depends. In some states it’s mandatory. In others, it’s “mandatory” because teachers or other students will harass/threaten you if you don’t do it.
The pledge has changed several times. Until the 1940s, it was coming to do the Bellamy Salute, which we stopped doing because it was too similar to the Nazi salute. As another poster noted, the 50s “under god” was added to the pledge (and the money) to conflate the US (and capitalism) with good /God. The Supreme Court case West Virginia v Barnette (1943) speaks to the virtue signaling of forcing the pledge and says it is not legal to require students to do it. But in my school in Texas in the 90s, it was mandatory.
But the pledge has been common in schools since the 1800s.
https://americanhistory.si.edu/blog/i-pledge-allegiance
The concept: [It sells flags to classrooms](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/pledge-allegiance-pr-gimmick-patriotic-vow-180956332/)
Downstream of that, it reinforces a nationalistic religion of state. The pledge of allegiance became the opening [prayer](https://academic.oup.com/jaar/article-abstract/75/1/121/787193), it’s the Fajr of the [religion which worships the American State](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_civil_religion).
Like every other prayer, children do it because they’re told. Ramifications for not participating are dependent on how fundamentalist to the [State religion your area is](https://www.houstonpress.com/news/avoiding-the-pledge-in-texas-schools-11349470). Most likely, you’ll just feel like an outcast, and be known as the kid who doesn’t love America as much as the others.
The pledge of allegiance is not used outside of primary school unless you’re at a rally for the political group which has centered itself around America as a religion.
He’s a video I was shown in grade school from Red Skeleton that breaks down what the pledge means.
https://youtu.be/WPdql7WqOuE?feature=shared
This sums it up better than I can
I’m pretty certain that non-American think about the pledge of allegiance more than Americans do.
It’s not mandatory for the most part. Not doing the pledge is protected under the 1st amendment, though schools still sometimes try to punish kids. You might get some side-eye in some schools, but there generally aren’t ramifications to not doing it. Hell, I grew up in a redneck area, with some of the most patriotic people around, and even they sometimes would just sit out the pledge if they were tired.
The only time a kid got any sort of ramifications was for flying the Confederate flag and pledging alliance to it instead of the American flag during the pledge. Yeah, he was “that kid”. But his punishment wasn’t for not doing the pledge, it was for purposefully being inflammatory.
We don’t do it as adults much, maybe some people on like the 4th of July, or joining the military or something.
Also fun fact, many states have their own pledges, and as a Texan I thought all states did and that all students around the us did the us pledge followed by their state one.
You very rarely hear it after elementary school. I think it’s mostly done out of tradition. There are no ramifications for not saying it. Kids aren’t thinking that deeply about it.
It’s another brainwashing technique this country instills into us when we are young. Thankfully us Millennials and Gen Zers started to realize how weird and nationalistic it is so we started ignoring it.
[deleted]
Not sure I’ve done it once since school. Wasn’t mandatory in my school either. I mean it was always done first thing in the morning and most people did it, just out of routine. I think I recall at least a few of my teachers emphasizing that we didn’t *have* to do it.
At some point (I think junior high or early high school), I only did the standing up part but stopped saying the words. Love my country and all, but I didn’t like the way we sounded like robotic drones. I’ll show my patriotism in my own way, on my own time
Always remember that this is a nation of immigrants. We don’t have a shared ethnicity or long history based on ethnicity. We come from many different countries and ethnic groups and cultures and traditions. We don’t just randomly exist because vague historical accidents put us here.
We were a country founded in a very different way from most countries. We were founded on ideals and ideas by mutual agreement. Our Constitution and the principles included in it were that mutual agreement. We took in many people with different ideas from different cultures who voluntarily came here as individuals and families. Ethnic groups didn’t migrate here like they did across Europe in previous centuries and millennia. They came as individuals into a new system that might have been very different than the one they came from. So it was always a necessity to teach civic education here and what it meant to be an American and how it was different. Being American wasn’t automatic like being German or Russian. Genealogy is not the basis. You had to assimilate mentally to become an American and understand the principles.
All the Pledge of Allegiance really is is a reminder of those principles. As someone in another comment said, the important part is not about the flag, per sé. It’s about what it represents, which is the common understanding of how we all get along, as immigrants from many different places.
***[I pledge allegiance…] and to the Republic for which it stands***, one Nation under God, indivisible, with **liberty and justice for all**
One of the key principles of the Constitution is equal protection under the law for all citizens. We don’t have royalty. Of course, we have stumbled along the way in implementing that idea but that doesn’t make it any less important, and perhaps makes it even more important. Being consciously reminded of that ideal can’t do any harm. You can’t reach a better place without having a goal to shoot for. As much as we have sometimes failed in fulfilling some of those ideals, they have always been admirable and inspirational and ideals worth striving for. That’s the Republic in the Pledge. It has nothing to do with nationalism in the sense it was used by Nazi Germany or other dictatorships and is currently used by Russia to justify the oppression of Ukraine and Ukrainians. Those things (like the concept of a master race) are not admirable goals worth striving for.
It started out as a way to sell flags but gained popularity during the Cold War as a way to instill patriotism in young people. Over the years it has for the most part been regulated to elementary school. I don’t believe it’s a thing in the later grades.
If they tried to indoctrinate us, they failed. Most of them time was spent worrying about homework, counting butterflys or thinking about grade school drama.
[removed]
It’s not mandatory and courts have repeatedly ruled on this. Will some children feel they have to say the pledge or face repercussions? Also yes.
It’s a quick way to get 30 kids calmed down and focused at 8 am. That’s about it
It’s a hell of a good reminder that we are…”one nation, under God, indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all.” Not one single word of the Pledge of Allegiance should be taken lightly or for granted. You might not realize it, but it protects us. And, If you haven’t experienced a packed rodeo stadium reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in perfect unison, everyone facing the flag, hats off, hands over hearts THEN singing the National Anthem, loud and proud? YOU. HAVE. MISSED. OUT. Not sorry.
People will tell you it’s “not mandatory” for kids in school, but YMMV based on the school. Growing up, we were absolutely 100% required to do it with the threat of detention or even suspension if we didn’t. People will say “that’s against the law,” but in my experience ***children*** don’t know that, and in more conservative areas a lot of teachers know that children don’t know that and *don’t care* that they aren’t supposed to force them to do it.
And even in schools in conservative areas where they are challenged on it, there are a lot of *social* consequences to not participating. Being the kid that “hates america” isn’t a good look for a kid to have with their teachers in rural america.
As an aside, in Wikipedia, look up the “Bellamy Salute” that was previously rendered while giving the pledge of allegiance. One look at the pictures and you’ll understand why this salute fell out of fashion in the 1930s.
Its kind of a traditional thing, no adults do it…mostly just a school kid start of the day sort of thing. Not even sure if schools do it anymore to be honest.
It’s a bit of a Tradition for us in the country, where we stand for the pledge at sports events, and it’s a way to show our patriotism. In my view here is what I do, I stand for the flag, but never for the leader.
It’s a tradition. It’s not required.