maybe kids are a crapshoot. there's no such thing as a perfect parent, and despite everything some parents do some kids don't become president. and of course oppositely, despite completely shit and absent parents some kids turn out to be success. nature vs. nuture i guess. some kids have the nature side down and can become whatever, meanwhile others have a less ideal nature and despite all help and pushing still end up working retail in their 40s.
this. that man is not a legend or a parenting hero. his daughter embarrassed him on fb, so this psychopath got a gun and destroyed her laptop. he wasn't trying to discipline her, he was getting revenge. there is a fine but important distinction between punishment as a part of discipline, and punishing for the sake of it. he missed the 'discipline' part by a country mile. this taught that girl nothing but that her father is a over reacting dick. this is not the kind of man i'd ever approach to talk about things, i'd probably just rant about him to my friends... oh wait.
i lol'd and moved on at this video. that was not some traumatic event. is it really any worse than him taking the laptop away? she's a teenage girl, any form of punishment is going to result in him being "the worst" etc etc. in a few years she's going to be drunk posting on a board or drinking with friends talking about how her dad shot her laptop and now that she thinks about it she was a little saucy bitch back then.
he elaborated on some of these points later on after the video went viral. he regrets the fact that it was seen by as many people as it was. his daughter's facebook post reached about 200 people, and he intended for those same 200 people to see it. instead, 40 million people saw it. he made the point that he had promised to put a bullet in her laptop if she posted disrespectful things about him on facebook again. if he'd promised to take a hammer to it or give it away, he would have done that instead, but he had said "put a bullet in it." he was going through with his promise. in that part of the country, a gun is a tool, just like a saw, a truck, or a hammer. it's not any scarier to shoot the laptop than it is to run it over with his truck or smash it with a hammer. maybe if he was living in cambridge, ma, and bought a revolver exclusively to shoot the laptop, it'd be crazy to do so. but if the gun is already a part of their life and is used regularly for all sorts of other stuff, it's interchangeable with using a sledgehammer. i disagree. i think that it taught her a few things: 1. if her father promises to do something, he will do it, for good or for ill. 2. she has rules, and she will be held accountable for them no matter what. 3. what you say online has real-world consequences. ------ personally, i like the fact that the punishment fit the crime. use the laptop to be a douchebag online? you lose the laptop. disrespect your parents after they've provided you with luxuries? you lose the luxuries. pose as a rebellious teenager to your dumbass friends? get called out and shamed in front of your friends. the one thing that was disproportionate was the viral spread of the video. he intended the embarrassment to be local and instead made a family issue a national issue. but i see absolutely nothing wrong with shooting your kid's laptop, especially after you set clear rules regarding the use of the laptop and promise that you're going to do it if the kid breaks the rules.
there was a 13-14 year old kid around here who got caught stealing, so his dad put his phone in a clay pigeon thrower and dusted it with his 12 gauge. pretty creative, but a waste of a good phone.
i don't know, it just seems kind of hypocritical to me. she wrote disrespectful things about her parents online, so he filmed a 10 minute video saying all the bad things about her and posted it to all her friends. it seems like he's done exactly what she did to them, but he's gone out of his way to humiliate her. the difference is: she's a teenager. teenagers are little shits; that's part of the maturing process as children develop emotional independence from their parents, but haven't yet developed an adult ability to empathise with others. i don't have any kids, so i don't know anything about parenting, but i've spent about 6 years volunteering for a youth group aimed at teenagers. in my experience, you have to rise above their level and stay a positive role model even when they're being self absorbed little shits. you have to be the adult, because they don't know how to yet. they'll respond to you if they admire and want to emulate you. but it seems like this guy just sunk down to his daughter's level, but did it in a far more calculated and humiliating way. when has humiliating someone ever gotten them to understand the lesson you're trying to teach? i think the main lesson she'd learn is that the rules that apply to her, don't apply to her father. that he's self-absorbed and melodramatic, but he's allowed to be because he's an adult. firmly punish her for disrespecting her parents? sure. take her laptop away? sure. come up with some other creative punishments? sure. everything else about the video seemed childish to me.
i learned a long time ago that a key part of parenting is meaning what you say and doing what you'll say you do. right, wrong, or indifferent - he said he'd put a bullet in the laptop. so he did. i bet she takes him at his word forever more.
yeah. god forbid these assholes donate the device to a family that could legitimately use it. no, much better to shoot it. remember kids, all your disagreements can be solved by discharging a firearm. life lessons from idiots in 10 gallon hats. all that stuff, i could not disagree more. like bees said he just did everything to her that she did to him, except on an international and unreasonably humiliating level. she's a teen, she's supposed to be an idiot. he's the adult. just because he promised to shoot it, doesn't mean he literally had to shoot it. a gun is no longer a tool, i don't give a damn where he lives. it is a weapon. it is not what brings dinner home anymore. it is an implement of self defense and sport (dangerous sport as a 9 year old just saw in nevada). a hammer, when you throw it at someone, becomes a weapon. in a knee jerk reaction he took what is supposedly his tool and meted out a punishment. if that isn't gun fetishization i do not know what is. that was irresponsible use of that "tool". sorry, prove me wrong. oh, sure. until you start blowing holes in things. she learned she can trust his word, but never again trust him as a father.
what we have learned at this point is that everyone has different opinions about guns. these opinions vary region-to-region, and are based upon that opinion-holder's own life experiences. as such, you aren't going to change the opinion of someone else, unless that person is open to having their opinion changed, and you grew up having similar experiences. so back to the original focus:
and just like that, all of us old perverts smile knowingly as we see the genesis of yet another girl with daddy issues