There's a video that's been going viral, being passed around on all the cool social media sites. Perhaps you've seen it, it's a father responding to his daughter's anti-parent, anti-chore rant on Facebook with his own disrespectful and immature rant ending with him shooting the daughter's laptop about 9 times.
Click here to watch the vid if you are interested.
Let's begin at the beginning here and I will point out what it is that disappoints and upsets me so much about this video. The title is "Facebook Parenting: For the troubled teen". Well, what exactly is his daughter doing that makes her a "troubled" teen? Sneaking out, drinking, doing drugs, stealing purses from little old ladies, vandalizing churches, having unprotected sex with many anonymous partners? Nope. What she has done to earn herself the label of "troubled" teen is to write a rant note on Facebook that highlights her disdain for how she is treated in her home by her parents and hiding that note from her parents on Facebook by blocking them. Huh, sounds like average teenage angst to me. Nothing "troubled" about being average.
He goes on to read the letter, that was never meant for his eyes, but he didn't actually find in a snoopish kind of way. I have read one account of this incident that says that the family dog has a facebook account, and when Dad logged in as the dog to post a new picture of the dog he was able to see the rant note because she did not block the family dog from seeing it. I have also inferred from the video that after he had finished fixing her laptop her open facebook account was the first thing that popped up. Either of these situations sound plausible and I would not consider them snooping or violating the daughter's privacy. I do have to wonder if she had secretly hoped her parents would see the letter someday so that maybe they could understand how she feels, or if she truly did mean for it to be hidden from their view. Either way, "Daddy Dearest" happened upon the letter and proceeds to rip it apart line by line and berate her for it. Let's talk for a moment about the letter. It is a rant, sure. A childish and perhaps even disrespectful rant letter, blasting her parents for treating her in a way that she feels is unfair and disrespectful. She talks about being upset about her chores, she talks about feeling like a "housekeeper", feeling like she is being treated unfairly, she talks about being tired and over-burdened between chores and school work. Understandably, the father reacts angrily to what is said in this letter. While he is picking it apart line by line, he specifically says that she was grounded for 3 months recently for something similar (for what we don't know, but I'm assuming it was expressing her feelings and disdain. Also I would think that one would realize that apparently those parenting methods aren't working and need to be reevaluated.) When he is done reading and picking apart her note, he proceeds to take her laptop and shoot it, about 9 times.
I have heard the words "ungrateful", "brat", "disrespectful" and even "troubled" being thrown around when used to describe the daughter based on her facebook letter (and the father's interpretation of it). I have already addressed my feelings about the use of the word "troubled" to describe this girl. I feel that "ungrateful, brat, and disrespectful" may all be warranted to some degree, but let's talk about those as well. Can you say, that at your worst moments, when you are over-worked, over-stress, under-appreciated that you don't sometimes say things and act in a way that someone else might label you as "ungrateful", "bratty", or even "disrespectful"? We all do it, right? We all feel over-whelmed at the end of the day and sometimes just need to vent a little bit. We all need a safe place to do so. Whether it is the ear of a friend, the arms of a partner, the pages of a diary or blog, or even on facebook. We all need a safe place to let off some damn steam sometimes, to say the things that are in our heart, whether or not they are "right" or "appropriate", whether or not they are "ungrateful", "bratty", or even "disrespectful". Was facebook the appropriate place for such a venting? Possibly not. I think it was, because I assume that it was a rant meant to be seen by her peers who would validate her feelings a bit for her (because sometimes when you want to vent you just want to have some say "yeah, that sucks", even when you are wrong). However, my husband has pointed out to me that perhaps it wasn't the best place for the rant, because a 15-year-old girl likely sends friend-requests to and accepts friend-requests from just about anyone. Therefore, it is likely that she is friends with her grandparents, aunt and uncles, and all kinds of other family members that don't need to be dragged into this kind of family "drama". I get that. When we look at this from the father's perspective, we can see that it would be embarrassing to know that your family had seen these kinds of things being said about you, and it would be even more embarrassing when you think that the child you are responsible for raising could be so "bratty" "ungrateful" and "disrespectful". (No one wants to be accused of raising a brat.) So facebook may not have been the best place for such a rant. But, where would the best place for this rant have been? Well, if she was having such negative feelings about her chores, if she was feeling that things were so unfair, then perhaps it would have been better if she had spoken to her parents about it to their face? Actually, I'd be willing to bet you money that she did. I'd be willing to bet you money that every time she has ever mentioned that something was unfair (which is a perfectly valid feeling), her parents met her frustrations with anger or exasperation and left her to feel that her feelings and opinions were not welcome and were not to be shared. Of course I'm sure that only applies to the feelings and opinions that the parents disagree with anyway.
I have heard people defending the action and attitude of this man by saying that the child should not be complaining about her chores. Even the father himself says in his video that her chores are not unfair, that they are fairly easy and shouldn't be taking her that long. Well, let me start by saying that I don't buy into the idea that "children need chores". I'm not saying that you shouldn't give your children chores if that's what you feel you should do, if that's what works for your family. I'm not even saying that this man shouldn't be giving his daughter chores. I'm simply saying that it is not an idea that I personally buy into. I personally believe that a family should help each other do the household work because that's what families do, not because someone makes them. No one makes me clean my house, but if I don't it gets gross and I become stressed and unhappy. So in order to keep myself from getting stressed, it helps when I do little "chores" each day. My husband helps with the house-work, not because I force him to but because he likes to help me. He doesn't want me to be stressed. Also, some days he knows that if he wants clean clothes he'd better wash them himself because there is no way I'm going to have time to get to it. My daughter, who is almost 10, helps me around the house when I ask her to (not always with a pleasant attitude, but more often than not). She watches her brother (my 3-year-old) when I ask her to. She changes his diaper when I ask her to. She takes out the trash for me when I ask her to. She cleans her bedroom and bathroom when I ask her to. She has learned that it is better to keep her room clean than allow it to become messy, because then she won't step on her things and break them and it makes it so much easier to find things, especially the small things. Sometimes it is hard for children to understand big concepts (like how to organize their belongings to make it easier to find what they want), so that is something I like to help with, but once that concept has been explained to the child and set up in a way that is easy for them to understand and achieve (ie, all your art supplies go in these containers, all your "Littlest Pet Shops" go in these containers) it becomes something they can and will do on their own. (But leaving it for them to figure out for themselves can be over-whelming and becomes part of the problem.) She has also learned that privileges are earned through responsibility. Meaning that if she wants nice things (a new guitar for Christmas, a snake for her birthday, a cell phone, etc) that she needs to prove she can take care of the things she has now. That's how it works. Once you can prove that you are responsible for your things, you can earn more nice things. If you treat your current things like crap, well that's your own problem, but don't ask for more nice things. I don't understand why this is a concept that is so hard for others to understand. A list of arbitrary forced chores doesn't instill anymore responsibility than the concept that if you want more things you have to be responsible for the things you have now. Nor does the idea that adults force children to do chores instill more responsibility in a child than the concept that families help each other when they need help because that's what families do. Neither does forcing a child to get a job teach responsibility, but it does teach them that they can't buy the things they want if they don't have the money for those things. However, those are my personal feelings about "chores". Aside from that, it's not really what the daughter's letter is about. Maybe chores are what works best for her family, maybe her chores aren't that difficult. Either way, the letter is about her feelings and opinions. The idea that she is feeling unappreciated, over-whelmed, and disrespected. Saying that she should not be complaining about her chores is like saying that you should never complain about your job. I mean, you should be grateful that you even have a job. Sure, maybe you should be grateful that you even have a job, but you have the right to vent and rant when you are feeling upset and over-whelmed. A child is a person, and they have the right to have feelings and opinions too, even when they need to vent and rant a little.
Did the father have a right to be upset about this situation? Well yes, of course. Anyone has a right to feel anything at any time. I probably wouldn't like finding a letter in which I was depicted as an evil tyrant either. Did he handle his emotions appropriately? Well, we can't always be expected to handle our emotions "appropriately". But adults should be better at handling these emotions than their children. They should be able to look at a situation without lashing out in anger. In fact, I will go so far as to say parents have a responsibility to NOT parent while angry! It is a parent's job to model what is an appropriate way to deal with your own negative emotions. This "eye for an eye" mentality seems highly inappropriate to me, and it does very little to teach your child how to deal with conflict. Berating your child, calling them names and acting disrespectfully to them on video does not seem to me like the best choice in handling a conflict, nor to guide your child and cultivate your relationship with them. The shooting of her laptop has been hailed as his right because he purchased the laptop for her. Well, I don't buy into that mentality either. My husband earns more than I do by more than double. Does that mean he has a right to vandalize my car if we get into an argument? He is paying for it after all. Or what if he gave it to me as a gift, is it OK then? No way! Just as you would likely leave a spouse that treated you and your belongings in this way, a teen that is treated this way is just as likely to leave home. And what is her ultimate crime here? Bashing him on the internet because she was feeling upset and angry. What is he teaching her by shooting her laptop? That she shouldn't use it when she feels the need to vent? That ultimately this is his world, his way, and she is lucky he allows her to live in it? That she will have no feelings and opinions other than the ones he gives her? Really, what is the point of this?
I read a great blog today about being friends with your c
hild, What Society Tells Us About Being Friends With Our Children (And Why It's Nonsense), in which the blogger says: "I'm not talking about
being a friend instead of a parent. And I'm not talking about fake "friendship" where we are desperately seeking approval from our kids, or trying to be
cool like Amy Poehler's character in
Mean Girls. My definition of friendship does not include any of
these things. I'm talking about
friendship. Real friendship. And all of the wonderful things that go with it. Love. Respect. Trust. Acceptance. Comfort. Fun. Laughter. I'm talking about treating my children as I would treat a dear friend, who
I invited into my life. One whose company I enjoy. One whose relationship with me is extremely valuable." I find this point of view so very substantial in this situation. You can be both a parent and a friend at the same time, and I feel that one should strive to do so. We are multifaceted this way in many aspects of our lives. Are we not friends with our spouses? Is that really that hard to intertwine these roles? And sure, sometimes when we are fighting, we can forget to be friendly, even with the people we love most in this world. The father's reaction here could easily be a case of "I was upset and treated you badly, I forgot to treat you as a friend." By this I mean that when you are upset with a spouse, a friend, a child, it is sometimes easy to forget to treat them with love and respect. Can I forgive this man for behaving badly in his state of anger and embarrassment, sure, and I'm sure his daughter can as well. (That's assuming, however, that he asked for forgiveness for reacting like an asshat, yet somehow I highly doubt that he did.) What I cannot forgive is the way so many members of our society have been acting as if this man is setting some kind of good parenting example. Because this isn't just bad parenting, this is a horrid example of how to deal with conflict and emotions and it is parenting by fear and intimidation.
A friend of mine posted the other day on her personal Facebook page that she was sick of the attitude of so many people that defended the actions of this man, and someone said "Well, what do you think he should have done then?" Like that's an argument for justifying this kind of behavior from a grown adult. "I couldn't think of anything good so I just went with what was easiest." (I call that "survival" or reactionary parenting, not "long-term" or "teaching" parenting, and I will blog about that another time.) But while we are here and on the subject I might as well tell you what I would have done. (Ideally that is, I'm not perfect either.) When I found the letter, I would have felt hurt and then I would have gotten pissed. I would have felt all the emotions this father felt. I would have been embarrassed that my child could be such an ungrateful little brat. I would have been pissed that she said such bad things about me. I would have been hurt. I would probably have wanted to confront her about it immediately. But using my years of wisdom and learning from my past mistakes (like yelling at my husband for leaving on crumbs on the counter when I just cleaned the kitchen, and later having to appologize for overreacting and being a douche, then rewording my frustrations in a more appropriate manner), I would have stopped myself. Or at least I hope I would, I'm speaking hypothetically after-all, but even if I couldn't stop myself from confronting her immediately, I would never berate her or escalate the matter by involving violence (destroying property is considered violent and is a marker of an abusive personality). I would like to believe that I would have given myself 10 minutes or so to calm down and then another 10 minutes to collect my thoughts on the matter. I would then confront her. I would explain why this upset and hurt me. I would then tell her that she can tell me when she feels upset and over-whelmed. When she feels something is unfair she can talk to me about, I might not agree with her and I may not make the changes she is looking for, but sometimes it just feels good to be heard, and I don't see any reason we couldn't come to some kind of compromise. So seriously, is there a reason for swearing, name calling, and involving violence? None what-so-ever. And the honesty of it is, my daughter already knows that she is welcome to come to me at any time and talk to me about anything. I don't always agree with her and I don't always give her what she wants, but I always listen. I honestly can't imagine an incident like this taking place in my home, even during the teenage-angst stage.
In the
post that Michelle Jacobs Hinman made on Facebook this week, she says "
Values are taught, not forced. Respect is earned, not demanded." And that is the bottom line here. Parents lead by example, from day 1, whether they want to or not. If they want to teach values, they need to be careful of the values they embrace for themselves. If they want respect, they need to give it in return. Children are people. Children have feelings. Children deserve respect. Only then can a relationship be built. Anger, disrespect, and violence can only begat more anger more disrespect and more violence. Get your heads out of your asses people, this is not "good" parenting.
Here are some links to a couple more blogs on this subject that I really appreciated:
Demand Euphoria: What Kind of Bed Do You Make With a Gun
freeplaylife: Friends Don't Let Friends Parent Batshit Crazy
and the note on FB that I reference earlier, which is my personal favorite on the subject: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=372307006131663&set=a.154464621249237.36994.100000570998309&type=1&theater
