I am the grit in the gears, the missing bolt, I am the poker of sticks into spokes.
I like to know how things work, but sometimes when I take them apart and rebuild them, I have a few pieces left over.
I am a man, so I tend to leave reading the instructions until after it goes wrong.
And like all men I have a comprehensive mental map of the world and never need to ask directions.
I never get lost, only sometimes I'm late, or end up in the wrong place entirely.
It's what we do.
Friday, 10 February 2012
Have Kids?
This is a man who found something his daughter wrote on facebook, it was addressed "to my parents", but... hidden from them, she thought he'd never see it.
RDG: I see. To protect the laptops? The point of this video isn't the gun use, I'm assuming that he's from a culture that regards owning a gun as no big deal. He could have used a hammer or an axe, or a rock, the message would be the same. Now me, I don't have a gun, and I'm the first to admit drilling holes in it with a battery-drill wouldn't quite have the same immediacy. Sledgehammer. Oh yes. Sixteen-pound sledgehammer. Knowing my luck, I'd just end up with a squished toe.
I had my 16 year old daughter watch this a second time with me. Her reaction? She thought Hannah's letter to her parents was "funny." She thought the dad was an asshole when he shot the laptop. She said if it were her, she'd have no respect left for the parents, and Hannah would probably run away; definitely Hannah will escalate her rebellion against the 'rents. She pointed out that this happens all the time at school: kids complain about their parents. If a parent continually comes down hard on a kid for all sorts of minor infractions of the 'law', the kid will go and do something excessive to prove to the parents that THIS is what can happen if you try to control a kid. She used herself as an example - throwing a party at dad's house while he was out of town ... it was her 'fuck you' to her dad for always chewing her out over minor issues.
Was the FB post excessively wrong? Yes, of course it was. Was she warned? Yes, of course ... But dad went after her, curse word for curse word and ended up in an action that was as brutally extreme as Hannah's post. Tit for tat as we like to say here in the south.
Look. Control does not work, PERIOD. Fear does not work, PERIOD.
I would have felt better if it were a sledgehammer - I truly would. All I could think about after watching this was the scenario that one day, Hannah will find the gun, load the bullets and pull the trigger herself ..... at what or whom is a tragic unknown to me. Teenagers do not think about the future consequences of their actions. It is part of what makes them TEENAGERS. Their brains aren't wired that way yet. You can find numerous studies on the impulsiveness of teen behavior. So whom do we expect to use some common sense and control in a situation like this? Who are we expecting to model 'sensible' behavior? Ummm ... the ADULTS ??
Take out the gun/bullet scenario with the laptop and what kind of video do you have?? One that will go viral on the internet? Really? Seriously?? Would you be posting an angry father's message to his daughter on your blog without the dramatic ending??? I'm all for embarrassing the kid publicly on her FB wall, etc .... but I abhor violence. All he proved to me was that he is a bigger bully than Hannah. I see no lesson in respect here.
This situation was a lose / lose scenario in all respects. I can only foresee more heartache for Hannah and her parents.
If I were Hannah, I would take a baseball bat to dad's favorite pick-up truck ... making sure I had my bags packed and a stash of money to run. The end result? Broken relationships that will last a lifetime.
"Q: How did your daughter respond to the video and to what happened to her laptop?
A: She responded to the video with “I can’t believe you shot my computer!” That was the first thing she said when she found out about it. Then we sat and we talked for quite a long while on the back patio about the things she did, the things I did in response, etc.
Later after she’d had time to process it and I’d had time to process her thoughts on the matters we discussed, we were back to a semi-truce… you know that uncomfortable moment when you’re in the kitchen with your child after an argument and you’re both waiting to see which one’s going to cave in and resume normal conversation first? Yeah, that moment. I told her about the video response and about it going viral and about the consequences it could have on our family for the next couple of days and asked if she wanted to see some of the comments people had made. After the first few hundred comments, she was astounded with the responses.
People were telling her she was going to commit suicide, commit a gun-related crime, become a drug addict, drop out of school, get pregnant on purpose, and become a stripper because she’s too emotionally damaged now to be a productive member of society. Apparently stripper was the job-choice of most of the commenters. Her response was “Dude… it’s only a computer. I mean, yeah I’m mad but pfft.” She actually asked me to post a comment on one of the threads (and I did) asking what other job fields the victims of laptop-homicide were eligible for because she wasn’t too keen on the stripping thing.
We agreed we learned two collective lessons from this so far:
First: As her father, I’ll definitely do what I say I will, both positive and negative and she can depend on that. She no longer has any doubt about that.
Second: We have always told her what you put online can affect you forever. Years later a single Facebook/MySpace/Twitter comment can affect her eligibility for a good job and can even get her fired from a job she already has. She’s seen first-hand through this video the worst possible scenario that can happen. One post, made by her Dad, will probably follow him the rest of his life; just like those mean things she said on Facebook will stick with the people her words hurt for a long time to come. Once you put it out there, you can’t take it back, so think carefully before you use the internet to broadcast your thoughts and feelings."
"For those that wondered, commented, criticized, and just in general wanted to know: My daughter came through it fine.
Yes, she's in trouble, and yes she's grounded, but that doesn't mean every moment of her life has to be miserable. She's going to come to terms with the changes that will be present for a while; no TV privileges, no Internet, etc.
In the meantime, once the initial anger passed,... she sat with me reviewing some of the comments that have come in via Facebook and YouTube. One person even suggested collecting the shell casings and auctioning them on eBay. I said I’d do it if it would help contribute to her college fund! When I told her about it, she thought a minute, got a funny calculating expression on her face and said, “in that case you should shoot my phone too. We can use more bullets and I’ll go half-sies with ya on it! It’s not like I’m going to need it any time soon. And I can use the money we get to buy a new one.”
While the whole point of this story isn’t funny, what is funny to me is how weak some people out there think kids are. Our kids are as strong as we help them to be. My daughter took a horrible day in her life, had her crying fit, then got over it, accepted her punishment, and hasn’t let it (or people’s comments) destroy her strength. I don’t get any credit for that. She’s strong and able to overcome almost anything life throws at her.
Since this unsuspectingly threw her into the limelight much more strongly than either of us intended, I asked her if she wanted to make her own response video, and told her I’d let her do it if she wanted to. She doesn’t like being in front of the camera, so she declined, but I’ve told her if she wants to write a response or post a video response, I’d be OK with it. It’s only fair considering the viral nature of the whole thing. So far she’s not really interested. Quite frankly it seems she’s gotten bored of it much faster than the general public has. "
While I appreciate what you pulled from The Daily Mail here on your blog, I shall always remember Tommy Jordan of Albemarle, North Carolina, as the out of control father who shot his daughter's laptop to make a point. Incredulous.
there is a reason i don't allow guns in the house ...
ReplyDeleteAgreed.
ReplyDeleteBut whatever tool was used to destroy the laptop- she had been warned.
I wonder if he would like to referee a Scots football match......?
ReplyDeleteRDG: I see. To protect the laptops?
ReplyDeleteThe point of this video isn't the gun use, I'm assuming that he's from a culture that regards owning a gun as no big deal. He could have used a hammer or an axe, or a rock, the message would be the same.
Now me, I don't have a gun, and I'm the first to admit drilling holes in it with a battery-drill wouldn't quite have the same immediacy.
Sledgehammer. Oh yes. Sixteen-pound sledgehammer.
Knowing my luck, I'd just end up with a squished toe.
gz: Quite.
Adullamite: I'd sponsor him.
I had my 16 year old daughter watch this a second time with me. Her reaction? She thought Hannah's letter to her parents was "funny." She thought the dad was an asshole when he shot the laptop. She said if it were her, she'd have no respect left for the parents, and Hannah would probably run away; definitely Hannah will escalate her rebellion against the 'rents. She pointed out that this happens all the time at school: kids complain about their parents. If a parent continually comes down hard on a kid for all sorts of minor infractions of the 'law', the kid will go and do something excessive to prove to the parents that THIS is what can happen if you try to control a kid. She used herself as an example - throwing a party at dad's house while he was out of town ... it was her 'fuck you' to her dad for always chewing her out over minor issues.
DeleteWas the FB post excessively wrong? Yes, of course it was. Was she warned? Yes, of course ... But dad went after her, curse word for curse word and ended up in an action that was as brutally extreme as Hannah's post. Tit for tat as we like to say here in the south.
Look. Control does not work, PERIOD. Fear does not work, PERIOD.
I would have felt better if it were a sledgehammer - I truly would. All I could think about after watching this was the scenario that one day, Hannah will find the gun, load the bullets and pull the trigger herself ..... at what or whom is a tragic unknown to me. Teenagers do not think about the future consequences of their actions. It is part of what makes them TEENAGERS. Their brains aren't wired that way yet. You can find numerous studies on the impulsiveness of teen behavior. So whom do we expect to use some common sense and control in a situation like this? Who are we expecting to model 'sensible' behavior? Ummm ... the ADULTS ??
Take out the gun/bullet scenario with the laptop and what kind of video do you have?? One that will go viral on the internet? Really? Seriously?? Would you be posting an angry father's message to his daughter on your blog without the dramatic ending??? I'm all for embarrassing the kid publicly on her FB wall, etc .... but I abhor violence. All he proved to me was that he is a bigger bully than Hannah. I see no lesson in respect here.
This situation was a lose / lose scenario in all respects. I can only foresee more heartache for Hannah and her parents.
If I were Hannah, I would take a baseball bat to dad's favorite pick-up truck ... making sure I had my bags packed and a stash of money to run. The end result? Broken relationships that will last a lifetime.
There are no winners in war.
"Q: How did your daughter respond to the video and to what happened to her laptop?
DeleteA: She responded to the video with “I can’t believe you shot my computer!” That was the first thing she said when she found out about it. Then we sat and we talked for quite a long while on the back patio about the things she did, the things I did in response, etc.
Later after she’d had time to process it and I’d had time to process her thoughts on the matters we discussed, we were back to a semi-truce… you know that uncomfortable moment when you’re in the kitchen with your child after an argument and you’re both waiting to see which one’s going to cave in and resume normal conversation first? Yeah, that moment. I told her about the video response and about it going viral and about the consequences it could have on our family for the next couple of days and asked if she wanted to see some of the comments people had made. After the first few hundred comments, she was astounded with the responses.
People were telling her she was going to commit suicide, commit a gun-related crime, become a drug addict, drop out of school, get pregnant on purpose, and become a stripper because she’s too emotionally damaged now to be a productive member of society. Apparently stripper was the job-choice of most of the commenters. Her response was “Dude… it’s only a computer. I mean, yeah I’m mad but pfft.” She actually asked me to post a comment on one of the threads (and I did) asking what other job fields the victims of laptop-homicide were eligible for because she wasn’t too keen on the stripping thing.
We agreed we learned two collective lessons from this so far:
First: As her father, I’ll definitely do what I say I will, both positive and negative and she can depend on that. She no longer has any doubt about that.
Second: We have always told her what you put online can affect you forever. Years later a single Facebook/MySpace/Twitter comment can affect her eligibility for a good job and can even get her fired from a job she already has. She’s seen first-hand through this video the worst possible scenario that can happen. One post, made by her Dad, will probably follow him the rest of his life; just like those mean things she said on Facebook will stick with the people her words hurt for a long time to come. Once you put it out there, you can’t take it back, so think carefully before you use the internet to broadcast your thoughts and feelings."
"For those that wondered, commented, criticized, and just in general wanted to know:
ReplyDeleteMy daughter came through it fine.
Yes, she's in trouble, and yes she's grounded, but that doesn't mean every moment of her life has to be miserable. She's going to come to terms with the changes that will be present for a while; no TV privileges, no Internet, etc.
In the meantime, once the initial anger passed,... she sat with me reviewing some of the comments that have come in via Facebook and YouTube. One person even suggested collecting the shell casings and auctioning them on eBay. I said I’d do it if it would help contribute to her college fund! When I told her about it, she thought a minute, got a funny calculating expression on her face and said, “in that case you should shoot my phone too. We can use more bullets and I’ll go half-sies with ya on it! It’s not like I’m going to need it any time soon. And I can use the money we get to buy a new one.”
While the whole point of this story isn’t funny, what is funny to me is how weak some people out there think kids are. Our kids are as strong as we help them to be. My daughter took a horrible day in her life, had her crying fit, then got over it, accepted her punishment, and hasn’t let it (or people’s comments) destroy her strength. I don’t get any credit for that. She’s strong and able to overcome almost anything life throws at her.
Since this unsuspectingly threw her into the limelight much more strongly than either of us intended, I asked her if she wanted to make her own response video, and told her I’d let her do it if she wanted to. She doesn’t like being in front of the camera, so she declined, but I’ve told her if she wants to write a response or post a video response, I’d be OK with it. It’s only fair considering the viral nature of the whole thing. So far she’s not really interested. Quite frankly it seems she’s gotten bored of it much faster than the general public has. "
While I appreciate what you pulled from The Daily Mail here on your blog, I shall always remember Tommy Jordan of Albemarle, North Carolina, as the out of control father who shot his daughter's laptop to make a point. Incredulous.
DeleteNot the Daily Mail.
DeleteSo THAT's what a Yorkshire accent sounds like.
ReplyDeleteThe Daily Mail
ReplyDeleteStill not the Daily Mail.
ReplyDeleteOther sources can come up with the same material.
http://www.litefm.com/pages/news-story.html?feed=421220&article=9744152
You're missing the point.
ReplyDeleteSomeday that little girl will put one right between daddys eyes, and the chickens will have come home to roost.
ReplyDelete