I can’t stop watching this video… I am 50% horrified and 50% think it’s kind of awesome. To sum up: A video has gone viral of a parent’s rant about the laziness of his daughter (who stands accused of spending all of her time on the computer and never doing her chores). The daughter apparently posted a profanity-laced complaint about her parents, and the chores they make her do, on her Facebook page.
After a long rant about how things were different when HE was a boy and how his daughter has it so easy (which sounded eerily familiar to me and, I suspect, to anyone who has a dad), the dad takes a .45 to his 15-year-old’s computer… firing several rounds into it and then demanding she reimburse him for the bullets. The video has been called: “Facebook Parenting: For the troubled teen.” The dad uploaded it to YouTube and it’s been viewed nearly 4 million times. (by the way, watching a computer get shot is kind of thrilling)
So many mixed feelings about dad, here. Obviously, a controversial parenting technique… also, I feel like it all comes unfairly down on the laptop (LAPTOPS don’t make snotty Facebook posts, people make snotty Facebook posts…) and using firearms in parental situations is probably a “no”, even for the most rabid tiger parents. Still, there is clearly a real issue at the heart of the madness: How to parents control their kids’ use of technology.
I have no children, but the idea of dealing with a child’s smartphone/Facebook presence is daunting. Kids are clever at sneaking around barriers… plus, aren’t they always way more tech savvy than their parents (by natural law)? And I would want to protect my kid from posting stupid things that would be exhumed at job interviews years later (not that accounting firms can’t appreciate a good keg-stand) as well as some of the viciousness that comes out in interactions on Facebook etc (playground 2.0).
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