A Rant on Bad Parenting

I have to rant about bad parenting, especially with the recent viral outbreak of that video of the Southern “Gentleman” destroying his daughter's laptop with a handgun (which should be illegal anyway, but that is beside the point). Before I get into anything though, I just want to point out that I'm very confident that the video is a sham to go viral. The guy lacks any confidence behind what he says and stutters a significant amount—a clear sign that he has no clue what he's saying. If he's as angry and emotional as what he says, then the words just come right out. But they don't. Instead, his dialogue is littered with “ums”. You might also notice his eyes, which constantly shift upward and to the left, an indication that he is “recalling” a story that never happened. So, either the whole thing was made up because they wanted a viral hit and knew something like that would cause quite a stir (a laptop being shot with a handgun = instant success) or what the daughter said in her Facebook post was true, but her dad is too stubborn to admit it and refuses to admit it. If any of this video is true, then this family really needs to sit down and have a dialogue and work out their problems. If there is truth behind it, then I'm sure neither his side nor her side is 100% accurate, but that both have their truths and half-truths. If any of it is true, then her dad clearly has no respect for her and does not trust her and feels that she was brought into this world to do his bidding. But that's not true. You don't own your kids; they aren't slaves. When you have kids, you HAVE kids—you don't buy them. You bump uglies and nine months later (give or take), a screaming, bloody goo-covered kid pops out mommy's soon-to-be-torn vagina. Sure, kids do need to take some responsibility and show appreciation for everything their parents give them, but that does not by any means give the parent the right to demean and harass their child with public humiliation. The man in this video is a disgrace, whether he be real parent or troll.

Having spent three years working in an educational environment, I've seen a beaucoup of different parents and respective parenting styles. I'm also the kind of guy who parents always seem to the think is a good influence, so my friends' parents are always putting me in awkward situations, especially considering I've always had a few really good friends who are a bit younger than me. Really, I've had exposure to both sides of the situation: I've seen the perspective of the kid and of the parent. I've seen straight-A kids who never do anything wrong not be trusted the slightest and punished for even the tiniest thing (meanwhile, their parents are completely oblivious to the fact that they have no friends and are bullied at school). Then I've also seen the opposite: kids who could easily be classed as juvenile delinquents and their parents aren't bothered and let them run amok. I've seen kids of all kinds and parents of all kinds and they all handle situations differently. I've seen some pretty great parents who have a great relationship with their kids, but I've also seen parents who have no right to be anyone's parent.

If you're the kind of person who must rely upon a chemical alteration of your state of being in order to live your live, then you probably shouldn't be a parent. I'm glad you had kids because your kids are amazing, but I hate that you're their parent. Whether it's tobacco, alcohol, weed, pills, or heavy drugs like coke or heroin, if you can't respect yourself and your body and be responsible enough to find contentedness without chemicals, then there is no way you can be a responsible parent. I have little respect for people who lead vice-filled lives in order to get by as it is, but I have even less respect when they have children and keep that vice—especially if they place their vice first. No matter which vice is yours, be it smoking, drinking, or what have you, it is going to have a huge impact on your children. For starters, if you smoke, you're slowly killing your kids by exposing them to second-hand smoke, nevermind that by smoking a pack a day, you're spending a minimum of $5 a day on your disgusting habit, assuming you go for the cheapest pack and don't live in New York. Excluding February, that's a minimum of $150 a month; meanwhile, your kid is wearing shoes from Wal-Mart that needed replaced five months ago. You can get a brand new pair of Nike Shox for less than $150. Or pay for fifty school lunches. What really irks me is when I see a parent use their child support card to buy cigarettes, which, working at a grocery store, is something I have seen happen more than once. It is also very common to see someone with food stamps use what little cash they have to buy smokes. The use of some of these things (drugs and alcohol) can always lead to some bad situations in the home too. Drink too much and you lose control; don't get your fix and you can lose control. When you have an angry, out of control parent, lamps get broken, tables get upset, and kids are left with bruises.

There are other parents who are just flat out irresponsible. The ones who let their kids do whatever and also the ones who care about only themselves and put their well-being before their kids. For instance, my dad doesn't pay for anything for me other than my phone (though I have to pay the data package) and my health insurance (both of which he seems to be strongly considering canceling to save himself some cash). Everything else is left to either my mom or me—hooray for student loans and medical bills! I also know someone whose dad more or less abandoned him and moved to another city forty away without telling him. My cousin's young daughter (she just turned eight on Friday—Happy birthday!!) has Cystic Fibrosis and just had yet another stay in the hospital because her mother (not married to my cousin and thus not a part of our family, thanks god) can't seem to be bothered to give her her daily treatments as needed. I've met other parents who are so enveloped in their own world that they're completely oblivious to the fact that their kids hate their lives and have contemplated suicide (typically a large part of why they feel this way is because of their parents). They have no clue that their kids have no friends and are being bullied or are maybe questioning their sexuality and are just plain stressed out—that's right, kids DO get stressed. These kids probably leave lots of signs too, but their parents never pick up on them. With something like bad grades, which is typically a big byproduct of these kind of things, the parents will turn around and throw it back at the kids, just adding to the excessive weight upon their shoulders. Though, the only reason they even know their kids are getting bad grades (or maybe dropped from As and Bs to Cs and Ds) is because the school contacted them to find out what is going on; the parents are too busy to keep an eye on their kids' grades and make sure their homework is done.

So here's my point: if you're going to have kids, be a good parent. Take responsibility. Be a respectable human being. Don't be a dick to your kids. I want to have a big family when I get married and have kids, and I know I'm going to be a great dad to each and every one of them.