Gov. Paul LePage recently announced that he will not make any nominations until at least January. Further, that he might not participate in the upcoming legislative process, but rather he may delegate that task to his chief of staff.

I thought about what the governor has announced he will do and concluded that he does not understand his place in an applicable analogy. He is one of the kids in the sandbox, and therefore has to learn to play nice with the other kids. He is not the adult who watches the kids and is responsible for telling the kids what to do or how to act.

He needs to understand that if he kicks sand in the Legislature’s face, the legislators, understandably, have a tendency to kick some back, although they have been remarkably restrained of late. It is both their jobs to build and remodel the contents of the sandbox with structures that will help the adults, the electorate in Maine who put them in the sandbox to begin with.

The governor and the members of the Legislature do not have to like each other or each others’ ideas. They do have the responsibility to work toward what they believe with civility and without kicking sand in each others’ faces, which is both unbecoming and inappropriate. Personally, there are people who I dislike who have opposite views to my own. That does not permit me to act like a child, stamp my feet and kick sand in a sandbox.

LePage and members of the Legislature should grow up, listen to each other and try to come to agreements that are best for the residents of Maine. If they cannot agree, at least they can stop insulting each other. All that does is take attention away from the logic of their arguments.

Anne P. Schaad, Fayette