Rants & Raves

This father disapproved of something his daughter had to say on facebook, so he did the most mature and reasonable thing to set an example: he made a video chastising her and then unloaded several rounds into her computer.

Amazingly, a lot of parents leave comments on this video praising this guy for his excellent parenting. For those who didn’t watch the video, basically the girl, his 15 year old daughter, complained on her facebook on a private post that her parents were blocked from seeing. She complained about stuff that she was unhappy with and admittedly, was being a little bit of a brat (if indeed what the father said in his rebut was true). Explain this to me, though: he seems to be angry that she doesn’t understand the value of a dollar, so he (a grown man) IS SHOOTING A GUN AT HER LAPTOP! He’s also demanding in the video that she pays back the money it cost him to buy bullets and upgrade the machine. Here’s an idea Pop, take the laptop away, don’t shoot it and expect someone to reimburse you.

To Tommy Jordan

Based on what you say, ok, perhaps she’s being a brat. Let’s be reasonable father, there are far worse things a 15 year old can be doing. There are lots of things “troubled teens” do growing up. Newsflash: complaining about your parents isn’t one of them; that’s something everyone does. Most people into their adulthood still complain about their parents until they day their parents die. She complained on facebook to her friends, this is because facebook is a defacto medium in this day and age. If this were 20 years ago, she would have been calling her friends up and telling them all this one by one. Grounding your daughter “until she’s done with high school,” presumably 3 years in the future, for complaining to friends about things she’s unhappy about doesn’t warrant this kind of behavior. Based on what you’ve had to say, you aren’t that bad of a father (or at least weren’t until making this video) nor is she that bad of a daughter – you have both been spoiled. This could have easily been something you could have sat down with her and talked about and probably solved. Acting out like this makes you come across as nothing more than a 15 year old in a grown man’s body that is throwing a temper tantrum. Instead of addressing the problem and talking it out like civilized people do, you chose this method. You’ve made her the martyr. Now that you’ve posted this video on her wall, all of her friends will take pity on her and see you as the big bad douche bag being intimidating and making a video with your big bad-ass gun and big bad-ass cowboy hat.

Kids misbehave, it’s part of the growing up process, but most of us did it without the benefit of our father waving a gun around acting like a tough guy. It really leaves one to wonder what your existing relationship was like prior to this incident. Frankly, that’s a very intimidating way to get your point across and probably classifiable as abuse. When your child is able to say, “dad, please put the gun down and let’s talk,” you’ve gone way overboard. When you’re on your deathbed hoping you get a chance to make amends with the daughter that you lost along the way, don’t be surprised when you can’t even track her down because she’s cut you out of her life and moved as far away from you as possible.

P.S. Do you by any chance watch Nascar?