So there's this video going around.

[marikunin]

It's of a father shooting his daughter's laptop.

Now, let me brief you all on the background behind this:

-the girl in question is 15.

-she complained (on her locked Facebook profile, mind you) about doing chores or something to her friends

-her father hacked into her Facebook account, found out about the complaints, and then he took her laptop. (That she saved up for and paid for with her own money) He shot it repeatedly with a .45 in a residential area and then, if that wasn't bad enough, video taped it and posted the video to YouTube for his daughter to be publicly humiliated.

You want to know what makes me even more sick?

People are applauding this man. They're saying that kids today are ungrateful and spoiled and so on.

NO.

This is abuse. You wanna know what this reminded me of?

My dad stomping on my old Nintendo DS right in front of me because I was being "disobedient". (He didn't know it was broken at the time though)

My cousin taking away my iPod for 7 months because I had an untidy room.

CHILDREN ARE NOT FUCKING PROPERTY. THEY ARE PEOPLE.

Posted via LiveJournal app for iPhone.

Comments

[auroradreams23.livejournal.com]

I thought it was horrible. It was like he was trying to get even with her by ruining her name on facebook. It was vengeance really. Yes, she needed punishment but he shouldn't have done it in anger. God help me, I will never punish my children in anger, no matter how horrifyingly they behave.. I do know I'll need God's help for that because honestly, what that girl did blew my mind!

[kindmemory.livejournal.com]

Thank you! Shooting a computer is about you and what you can do with your gun, and he was just getting back at her, not punishing her or disciplining her. Well, he sort of was, but in such a ridiculously violent and dramatic way that it's more about him and how he's the boss of her, rather than how a father should handle discipline.

[kindmemory.livejournal.com]

...And thank you Mary, because it bugged me so much to see this posted at fifty_something (LJ comm. for over 50 folks) and see so much cheering for the dad, and self-righteous judgement of the teen.

He just decided to to what she did, and we don't hear him mentioning the mom much or just what it is that they do together as a family or what she is allowed to do for activities on her own (band, art, glee club, whatever) so that she won't be overwhelmed by her chores.

It sounds like from sunup to sundown there is stuff for her to do, but he's not mentioning anything other than Facebook.

She did go overboard with the cleaning lady stuff, it sounds like, and the dad sincerely sounds hurt. But he's the dad, he's supposed to keep a cool head, not waste his money(or his daughter's money)by shooting a computer that never hurt him!

[konohage.livejournal.com]

WOOOOW. Yeah, you know what I call that, too? Anger management issues. Seriously, why would anyone do that? And to their own kid? Whatever happened to communication between family members?

[rightxhere.livejournal.com]

Amen to EVERYTHING you said! It was abuse. Parents and other guardians who do this to people.... they shouldn't be applauded!

I can proudly say my parents never destroyed our things if we were naughty. They'd put it away for a few days until we behaved, OR they turned it into an item that we only got to use once a week instead of every day.... to teach us to value our belongings, and where family items (like board games and play sets) were concerned, it was to teach us not to argue over things.

Yeah, I just don't get parents today. They think they can do that kind of bullshit this guy did and like what you went through? NO. Unacceptable.

[hymnia.livejournal.com]

(That she saved up for and paid for with her own money)

Where did you hear that? Because that was not the impression that I got, considering he said she wouldn't get a laptop until she saved up and paid for one herself--the implication being that she *didn't* pay for this one. So yeah. Unless I see a reliable source on that, I'm skeptical. It is my impression (and I think a lot of older-than-Millenial adults probably share this impression) that a lot of teens don't adequately appreciate what their parents do for them by providing them with many, many of the things they care about, including access to technology. Teens do *not* have an absolute right to have full access to cell phones, laptops, ipods, etc. that their parents provide for them. Parents are within their rights restricting all or some of their access to those, especially when they use those things to misbehave. (If she really did buy that laptop herself, then that would make things a bit different. Her parents would still have some right to restrict access to it, IMO, within reason, but not to destroy it.) Either way, I think shooting it was definitely overkill. At the least, he could have wiped it's memory and given it to charity. Anther less theatrical/hysterical option would have been to cut off her internet access (by, say, removing the wireless card). And tearing her down on YouTube was definitely not good parenting. That's the part that really bothered me. But the essence of what he did--taking away her access to the communication technology that she used to disrespect him--is probably the main reason people are cheering him on. Understandably so, IMO.

[auroradreams23.livejournal.com]

I agree. He has every right to take it away for good but his attitude was wrong.