Perhaps you’ve seen the video. “Facebook Parenting,” it calls itself, “for the troubled teen.”
This viral video is an anti-thesis to successful parenting and goes against almost everything my nearly-four years spent in pursuit of a liberal education has taught me.
“He’s (sic) my parental hero!” raved a Facebook friend-of-a-friend.
Not so, my grammar challenged acquaintance.
Why my outrage? For the first few minutes, I supported dear old dad. He produced this video in response to a Facebook post his daughter made belittling her parents and complaining about doing chores and finding a job. What better way to answer her technology-assisted rant than with technology? Well played, dad, well played.
As the video progressed, an incredulous look crept onto my face. Dad becomes angry and pulls out a shotgun to destroy the laptop his daughter uses for schoolwork and it becomes obvious dad isn’t here to teach his daughter WHY what she did was wrong, just to provide a threat against future acts.
To be clear, the father was correct to taking action. It is the action he chose that I take issue with.
This video is offensive on a couple levels. The so-called parent not only wastes money (“I put $150 of software into this computer yesterday!”) but he also fails to provide an ethical or stance for his actions; rather, he simply escalates the situation and resorts to violent actions. Those make for good videos, but bad parents.
Perhaps the violent aspect of this video will shock the teen daughter into submission. It may even work until she leaves her parents’ care.
But, when daddy dearest is no longer there to threaten her with bullets to her electronics, will she still do the right thing?
No.
No, she won’t do what’s right. She will do, instead, whatever she can get away with without likely being punished. When there is no one to punish her, the girl will lack guidance.
Her father is teaching her, along with the 24 million people who’ve visited his YouTube page, to do what is right because if you misbehave and dad finds out, he’ll put bullets through your stuff.
Um, run that logic by me again?
Oh. You can’t, because the logic isn’t there. The father in this instance fails as a parent. He escalates the situation from the written word to gunshots.
When you have a child, you take on a great burden of responsibility. One such responsibility is to teach your children right from wrong. This father teaches only wrong from more wrong.
As another Facebook friend wisely wrote, “there is no parent here.”
I encourage you, now, to watch the video, whether for the first time or a subsequent viewing. There is a lesson to be learned here for parents, future parents, and members of society in general. But, that lesson is not taught with the aid of a handgun and 8 or 10 bullets.
Learn instead from the mistake this father made. Learn that there are shades of right and wrong in every choice we make. In this situation, both father and daughter chose bad options.
The next time you make a choice, I charge you to make the right choice for the right reason, not the wrong choice for the right reason as this father did.
And, mom and dad? Thanks for teaching me right from wrong, not wrong from more wrong.
