Monday 12 March 2012

When father and daughter wash dirty linen in public...

Here was a man who was telling about how his daughter posted on her Facebook wall, cursing him for “false allegations”. He says on the video: My daughter thought it would be funny/rebellious/cool to post on her Facebook wall just how upset she was and how unfair her life here is; how we work her too hard with chores, never pay her for chores, and just in general make her life difficult.

She chose to share this with the entire world on Facebook and block her parent's from seeing it. Well, umm... she failed. As of the end of this video, she won't have to worry anymore about posting inappropriate things on Facebook...

Maybe a few kids can take something away from this... If you're so disrespectful to your parents and yourself as to post this kind of thing on Facebook, you're deserving of some tough love. Today, my daughter is getting a dose of tough love.”

Plus, the video comes with a warning: “Since this video seems to have gone crazy, I figure I'll post this notice. I'm going to read a letter my 15 year old daughter wrote. There ARE some curse words in it. None of them are incredibly bad, but they are definitely things a little kid shouldn't hear... not to mention things MY KID shouldn't say!”
 AT one point, everybody should appreciate the man for making a point. His point is very simple: do not let your children walk all over you. He felt it was time to his daughter that she can’t just say or do whatever she wants.

But wonder, there was a cigarette in his fingers throughout the video. He used his gun at the end to shoot at his daughter’s laptop. But one might also argue that the dad loses his credibility by sitting on a video with a cigarette in his hand. His daughter's rant is no different than most teen girls of that age. The man as a father should have handled it in a different way. When we teach our children how to behave, should we not also teach them not to air their dirty laundry in public? And are there no better ways to deal with a teenager’s rant than shooting her computer and making the scene much more worse?

But I don’t understand why are people bashing a man, who has put a disrespectful kid in her place and did it in a way that she would understand and would make a point to her? If we disagree with him, then we have to go ahead and continue to let our children do whatever they want and have no repercussions for their actions.

The girl was warned months before this was found. If the father had not fixed her computer what else could she have posted and how far could she have gone? Children should respect and be respected, it should work both ways. But if children go astray, they should be mended, their ways should be mended.

And I don’t understand why parents should be afraid of their children. If all parents were strict in parenting and had put fear in their children and mended their ways when they did mistakes, this world would have been in a better shape. Oh, yes. The scene is not that bad in India, as we still have respect for our parents and elders and our parents control our lives sometimes even after our marriage! Reason: Children can’t sue or file a complaint against their parents like western countries.

But here, I see and have heard how teenagers disrespect their parents and elders. And one should laud the idea of this man, for he didn't beat her or hurt her, which would have landed him behind bars, but he just hurt her where it hurts all teenagers most. And I see a parent commenting on the video: “He bought the computer, he can shoot the computer! And I'll gladly donate the money for the next round if need be! Great fathering!”

But don’t these children ever realize that whatever electronic gadgets they are getting are not needs, but are merely wants which parents buy them all the time to make them happy? No children earn to buy those fancy gadgets, from mobile phones to laptops to ipods to ipads, and not to mention about the monthly bills they get. They often take their parents for granted. They don’t even see how their parents work hard to get food, shelter and clothing, besides paying for their education.

Unfortunately, this teenager made it sound like she did the household laundry, made every bed in the place and waited on her parents hand and foot… Maybe she would have never survived in our world, in India, and in our time when we were being raised by our parents. When I was a teen, I got to see the TV only when I went to the high school and there were no other channels except Doordarshan, and most important, we had no remote control and we had to switch on and off by getting up from the sofa whenever our parents asked us to do so. And yes, the phone was there, locked almost all the time and we had to request our parents to make or receive the calls. We were taught to do all our chores, helped with meals and dishes. I then had no ipods, no computers, no cell phones, no days spent at the mall spending money I did not earn on anything and everything I wanted. And now, I have grown up and have made my parents proud by being wonderful adult. Had my parents not raised me in a proper way, I would have not been a person who I am today! 

I think, those who are bashing this father, have never been a parent yet, but others, who have been the girl’s age and are now parents, support the man wholeheartedly.

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