By now most of us have seen the viral video of maniacal uber-hick Tommy Jordan going country-style ham over his bratty daughter Hannah’s whiny Facebook post. What’s been interesting for me has been the reaction. Most of the parents I’ve read and listened to are cheering for this gun-toting hillbilly fiend, which I don’t thoroughly understand. Everyone with children gets pissed off about the way their kids act sometimes; it’s universal. And many of us have ideas about what we’d like to do to our children, but reason and accountability stop us when we come to the rational conclusion that spiteful, hot-headed, knee-jerk reactions don’t teach our children anything but that it’s okay to be spiteful, hot-headed, and to not think about how they act before they act.
Usually when yokels brandish firearms and squeeze off a few rounds when they get pissed off, the rest of civilized society kind of laugh them off as being uncivilized and silly. Why not now?? Why in this instance have we suddenly changed our tune?? Why is this angry outburst and unnecessary destruction of perfectly useful property for the humiliation of a petulant child being lauded as healthy and effective parenting??
There appear to be a lot of folks out there applauding this guy because the way they would like to handle their children when they act out is to beat the ever-lovin’ snot out of them, like these parents learned everything they know about parenting from reality television; you disrespect me, I beat the shit out of you, sans consequences. (I know these ideas are older than reality tv; just hang with me for a minute.) I honestly think that this is why people should be thinking long and hard before they have children, because once they’re here they’re going to fuck your world up and you’re not allowed to use violence. You, meaning the adult, are supposed to know better. I know that chaps your ass, Daddy Warhead, but if you can’t treat your children with respect then how do you expect them to know what it means?? Indulging your children by giving them stuff and then expecting them to be blindly grateful is a lovely idea, but it’s completely unrealistic. Teaching genuine gratitude is more than teaching a child to say please and thank you, and it’s a process that is rarely complete by the time a kid is fifteen. All kids want a new phone, a new iPod, an new gaming system, a new computer, a new whatever. My sister pointed out to me, when I was complaining about my own teenage daughter’s appetite for needlessly expensive shit, that kids and teens are materialistic: they all want stuff. They just do. The bottom line is that children haven’t finished their cognitive development by the age of fifteen. Unfortunately for young Hannah, the agent of her DNA has and he appears to be missing a few chromosomes. Children are still learning these things that dad Tommy is carrying on about. Some kids do get paid for helping around the house; it’s commonly called an allowance and it’s not an entirely unpopular idea just because he and his family choose not to employ it.
I say that because I’ve been told before to “behave like the grown-up” when it comes to my own kid, and in most cases the person saying that to me was right. Don’t get me wrong: being the grown up can f*ckin suck out loud. It’s rarely fun, but at some point a-grouch-for-a-grouch is not a reasonable way to approach the child. If the kid is being a mewling wretch and a parent’s reply is to be a mewling wretch back, what are we teaching them?? I know we’ve all done it. No one is perfect. I’m certainly not. But at some point it’s the job of the adult in the room to be in control of his-or-herself or he-or-she will never be in control of the situation.
There seems to be an entire culture of parents who think that they can tell their child once not to do something and that the child will never, ever do it again. It would be lovely if it actually worked that way, but in reality we all have to tell our kids over and over (and over and over and over and over) not to do things. It’s irritating as f*ck, I’ll give you that, but haven’t we all sounded like broken records until our nerves are shot and our heads hurt?? And haven’t we all had that moment when we throw up our hands, wondering what’s wrong with the child that they just don’t get it?? You can explain it six ways from Sunday and the child is still rude, or whatever. It’s embarrassing and frustrating, mostly because it reflects on us and what other people think about our parenting. And don’t try and give me that “I don’t give a fuck what anyone thinks” garbage, because if you didn’t care at all we wouldn’t be having these conversations with our kids in the first place. In any case, teenagers are the same way. They’re still technically children; they just look more like us. Unfortunately their brains are still not yet ripe for the proverbial picking and we have to keep reminding them to behave themselves.
I’d be curious how the issue between this father and his daughter came to this point, but it’s really none of my business. I feel like I’ve been cordially invited into a stranger’s family drama. When a video about someone else’s personal life goes viral it’s natural for the audience it creates to have their opinions, and we’ve all become audience members in someone else’s life when we see this vid. I feel like this is so none of my business, but I still find myself thinking about it. You know the phrase “when you have a problem face it, don’t Facebook it??” Well, when I have a problem sometimes I’ll use social networking as a tool to ask my friends their opinion, or to vent my frustration, as do many people and as did both of our protagonists, Tommy and Hannah. So far, none of my own personal issues have become viral videos for all and sundry. If they had, I’d be embarrassed, but that’s just me.
Obviously this is not an isolated incident that grew out of the ground, but the back story is largely a mystery to most of the viewers, other than the father telling everyone in the world that Hannah had been grounded for being immature a few months ago. I can’t speak much to what the daughter did because most of the information I have has been brought to me by her father, and that brings us to a he-said-she-said scenario from Hades. I’m not 100% sure why an angsty teen venting to friends is that big of a deal. I’m pretty dang-ola sure most of us did it in some form or another when we were kids, and I don’t think I’m going too far out on a ledge speculating that most of us got yelled at, put on restriction, kicked out of the house, had our privileges and belongings taken away (or even given away) more than once for it. If the solution to the equation was to pack hardware and bust a cap, more of our parents would have done that a long-ass time ago. Long story short, I get why the dad is pissed, but I think he is totally overreacting.
I can’t imagine the irreparable damage that’s been done to this father-daughter relationship. He thinks he’s teaching her respect, but respect is not the living in fear of your trigger-happy dad and the possibility that he’ll blast a hole in your shit whenever he hulks up. If this dad’s aim was to publicly humiliate his daughter, he’s succeeded admirably. She may not act out again, but not because she understands that it’s wrong: it’ll be because she’ll be wondering what her erratic, acrimonious father will do next time. I would not blame Hannah if she ceased trusting him altogether. He says he’d moved out by the time he was fifteen. If he continues to use mean-spirited shame tactics in a public arena as parenting tools, there’s a good chance his girl will take his advice and high-tail it on out of his jurisdiction nice and early, and by any means necessary.
Hannah, honey, I say this without malice as a parent to a teen your age and a woman who was once the brattiest of all the brats in the land: consider this your wake-up call. It’s okay to be annoyed with your parents; it happens to all of us. Believe me. But there are expectations for you and your behavior and you, my dear, must extract your pretty head from your behind and do something other than what you’re doing, because what you’re doing isn’t working. You can’t change how your parents react to you or what you do. You can only change how you act and what you do. If you want independence, get a baby-sitting job and start spending more time at the library doing homework, or whatever you have to do to make some changes in your life. It’s what it is now, plain and simple. Your family seems to think that you’re old enough to start making some of your own decisions. It’s inconvenient, but somewhere between your note on Facebook and your family’s reaction, this is where you are and what you have to work with. If you’re going to gripe online you have to be responsible for what you say. We all do. If you think you deserve better then get up off your butt and make it happen, because no one is going to hand you shit and update your computer for you forever. If you want something no one is entitled to take away from you, then you do have to get it your damn self. You can grow up and be a trophy wife, but then you’re still relying on someone else to get it for you. I hope this whole debacle teaches you some things, one of them being that you probably can’t trust people who discharge firearms into perfectly useful pieces of expensive technology out of anger. Get it together, babe, and “may the forces of evil become confused on the way to your home.”
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