I took a break from my project for class to clear my mind some and I found myself reflecting on a conversation I had with a coworker today. To lighten my mood, I sometimes view the entertainment sections of sites like CNN and USA Today. (Sad, but we need some relief sometimes!) As I am reading CNN's Entertainment site, I stumble across good old Alec Baldwin.
In this article there are quotes of a public apology he made about what he said to his daughter in a voicemail. You can even listen to the actual message he left her on the site. In his message, he is raging at his daughter about not answering her phone after what one would assume many attempts to get a hold of his daughter unsuccessfully. He in no way threatens physical harm. He just says he "is going to straighten her out" when he sees her. He is simply upset. His marriage is ending in a nasty divorce and custody suit, and he is losing touch with his daughter. He had a vulnerable moment of despair. Just because he's a celebrity doesn't make him less human.
So I'm thinking, "Why is this poor man being forced to apologize for yelling at his 11 year old publicly?" Sure, he called her a "little pig" who lacks "brains and respect", but seriously, why other than the fact that he is a celebrity is he being forced to apologize?!? I got yelled at worse as a teenager and I never dialed DSS and no one in my family ever had to apologize. I was rotten. So is his 11 year old. He could have said much worse!
As I'm discussing this with a co-worker he is getting passionate about this discussion. He can't believe that a parent would say that to a child of any age and he (Alec Baldwin) was completely pigheaded for saying something like that; and furthermore, his perfect non-divorced parents would never have said anything like that to him as a child or as an adult. This co-worker also has no children. So needless to say, everything he is saying is going in one ear and out the other. "What a jack ass!" is all I'm thinking at this point.
So what? Every parent has those moments where they visualize Rocketstar's picture of duct taping a child to a wall or worse. The only thing that I had an issue with after listening to the voicemail was the fact he called her mom "a worthless pain in the ass." Not good for the kid to hear and only fuels a fire in a nasty divorce and custody suit in my opinion.
But it seems like everyone is so ready to defend children, and pussy foot around everything that our future generations are going to be a bunch of sissies with no real world coping skills or knowledge. We are so quick to shelter our kids from reality now that by the time our younger generations have to face some tragedy like what happened on 9/11/01 or the massacre at Virginia Tech, or the war in Iraq, they won't have a prayer. They will have no coping skills. These kids are going to get picked on, get depressed, and have mommy and daddy sue the school district.
I've heard stories from teachers at middle schools and high schools about how 11 and 12 year olds are giving each other blow jobs and having sex in the bathrooms at the schools, some even in the classrooms when the teacher is not present!
In a society that is so quick to lay blame, my questions are this: What happened to parenting? Why have so many rights been taken from the parents and given to the children? Our kids are learning more from their friends which is essentially the blind leading the blind. That’s pretty scary stuff. And this is who we are going to be relying on in our old age to make good decisions?
