Strollerderby : bad parenting

Octomom to Kate: Don't You Judge Me

Madeline Holler — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 20:34:00 GMT

It's a battle of the super-breeders! The LA Times is reporting that Nadya Suleman (aka: Octomom) wants Kate Gosselin, star of TLC's "Jon & Kate + 8," to stop judging her.

Suleman's comments come after a recent episode of "Dr. Phil." Gosselin, the mother of five-year-old sextuplets and two older children, said that Suleman would have a difficult time raising her 14 children without a husband or money. She was responding to a question about Suleman's situation.

Here's what Suleman had to say in response:

"Do I have to watch it? She reminds me of my mother," said Suleman, a resident of La Habra, in an interview with Radar Online released this morning. "I have moved past my mistakes. She has her own issues. ... She needs to stop being so judgmental and stop pulling at straws for attention." ...

Suleman said in the video interview that Gosselin should focus on her own life. "My children are extremely healthy, strong and happy. Don't you have, like, a lot of issues in your life? A lot of marital problems?" she told Radar.

Ouch!

Incidentally, Suleman signed on for her own reality show. But producers want you to know it's different. Ocotomom herself will be holding the camera much of the time. Oh, that can't be good. That can't be good.

'Jon & Kate' Under Investigation

Blogger Defends Kate!

Image: LA Times

'Jon & Kate' Under Investigation

Madeline Holler — Fri, 29 May 2009 20:03:00 GMT

The mega-meltdown hit TV show "Jon & Kate + 8" is under investigation for breaking Pennsylvania child labor laws.

The state's Department of Labor is looking into whether the shows producers are complying with child labor laws. Investigators are gathering information from its represenatives, but officials are quick to point out an investigation does not mean suspicion: they investigate every complaint.

So who's behind this complaint and what's it about?

State officials aren't saying. But the couple's in-laws have openly called the show and the Gosselin parents "exploitative."

From MSNBC:

“Unfortunately, I think it has come down to all about the ratings,” sister-in-law Jodi Kreider told CBS’ “The Early Show.” “And no one is looking at these children as what they are going through and the life consequences they are going to have as they get older.”

Kreider said the children have told her they don’t like the cameras.

Her husband and Kate’s brother, Kevin Kreider, said in the same interview: “You can’t imagine as a child realizing that my birthday party, that all the outings that my parents took me on were ... for ratings, and all organized by production companies.”

A spokesperson for TLC said producers have been in full compliance with state laws and regulations.

Again, MSNBC:

State law permits kids who are at least 7 to work in the entertainment industry, as long as a permit is obtained and certain rules are followed. The law also allows performers younger than 7 to have “temporary employment ... in the production of a motion picture.”

The sextuplets have just turned 5. Ahhh, but this is reality TV and here's one possible outcome:

George Voegele, a labor lawyer at Cozen O’Connor in Philadelphia, said the Labor Department might well decide it doesn’t have jurisdiction over the show, especially if investigators determine the cameras are there to document the kids, not direct them.

“The fundamental question I see here is whether or not they’re employees, whether they’re working, and whether the Pennsylvania child labor law provisions would even apply to this situation,” he said.

Hmmm. Maybe 'Jon & Kate' will have a legal impact on future reality TV shows starring, uh, I mean "documenting" children.

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Photo:TLC

They Say: Abuse Changes a Child's Brain

Kate Tuttle — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 20:26:00 GMT

Researchers who had previously studied the relationships between stress responses and maternal nurturing in animals have taken their work into a new arena, looking at how human brains are affected, in adulthood, by abuse and neglect suffered in childhood. The study, carried out at McGill University in Montreal, is very small (it compared the brains of 12 suicide victims who had been abused to 12 suicide victims who had not been, against a control group of 12 non-suicide brains) but, many in the field agree, could lead to larger-scale research into how childhood trauma can cause lifelong damage to a person's ability to handle stress.

Like so many studies of how human beings work, this one seems to only confirm the obvious: who among us wouldn't instinctively know that a terrible childhood leaves permanent scars? And yet it goes further than that -- if a biological brain difference is found, therapies could be developed that would offer some hope of healing those previously unhealable wounds. And just as the researchers' previous work had looked at the multi-generational effect of both good and bad animal parenting, perhaps their ultimate goal would be to figure out how to end the cycle of bad human parenting, one formerly abused or neglected child at a time.

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Dad Jailed for Head-Butting Tot

JeanneSager — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 15:01:00 GMT

A Michigan dad is in jail for allegedly head-butting his two-year-old daughter; and I can see a long line of parents kicking themselves for trying the same trick.

Think about it. The little girl had climbed on his lap, and her head hit his. So he used his head to butt her forehead. She had some swelling, but nothing that required hospitalization. It hardly sounds like a case of major child abuse.

The details of the case are limited, so I can't say honestly say whether or not Dwayne Rowe blew his top and deserves to be jailed. I'm certainly not saying that violence is the best way to go, and someone who saw this happen apparently thought this was bad enough to call the cops.

So let's take this out of the Rowe home and into yours. Your two-year-old climbs up on your lap, she slams her head into yours because she thinks it's funny. What do you do?

At that age, a lot of kids like to headbutt. My daughter used to sit on my lap and throw herself backward - hitting my forehead, my chest, my glasses . . . whatever was in the way. I had to start holding my hand out, just behind her head, essentially keeping her head in place so she couldn't use it as a battering ram. That's probably the best (non-violent) way of getting kids to stop this - they start to get angry because they realize they can't freely move their heads. It's not fun for anyone - but they need to learn that hurting someone else isn't funny.

I didn't head-butt her, but I've seen parents try it. It's akin to the "bite the biting child" trick. Does the shock value of the act - teaching a child that their actions really hurt - make this OK? Or is head-butting just another way a parent crosses the line?

Image: BBC

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They Say: Parents Who Use Forward-Facing Strollers Treat Their Kids Like “Accessories”

Hannah Tennant-Moore — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 00:00:00 GMT

The New Zealand publication Stuff has its panties all in a bunch over forward-facing strollers, seeing them as nothing more than the latest torture device for innocent youngsters everywhere.

Remember the recent study that found that babies who are walked in forward-facing strollers could be “emotionally impoverished” because they are denied facial contact with their parents, and are forced instead to familiarize themselves with, uh, the rest of the world? Well, Karl du Fresne has covered the study under the headline “Babies Paraded as Parents’ Fashion Accessories.” I’m not sure what kind of childhood this du Fresne character had, but he seems to think that parents are universally, egregiously selfish and vain, and the forward-facing stroller is just one more example of this mass parenting travesty.

Du Fresne sees it as “no surprise” that being “propelled toward a procession of bewildering, and possibly frightening, strangers” would impair children’s development. And naturally, the only possible reason he can imagine for such horrific parenting is—fashion. He feels that parents everywhere see their children as nothing more than “a fashion accessory to be shown off for maximum advantage. This is accomplished far more effectively when the unfortunate infant is facing forward.”

Take that, forward-facing stroller users! I’ll bet you force your kids to wear diapers with those cutesy animal prints on them, too, you sickos.

Photo: Little Baby Guide

They Say: Forward-Facing Strollers Are Bad for Baby

World's Best Mom - Not!

SunnyChanel — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 17:25:00 GMT

Sure, people reward mother’s with such titles as Mom of the Year and mugs with World’s Best Mom! But how about Worst Mom of the Year or a cup engraved with My Mom Sucks? Well for the My Mom Sucks category, 43 year old Tracy Holt is a worthy contender. What makes her parenting skills in regards to her 13-year old so questionable?

The Telegraph UK says that the mom thinks “there are a "lot worse things" her daughter Sam could be doing than smoking 15 cigarettes a day, and believes that because she herself hasn't yet suffered from cancer, "she'll probably be alright anyway".

She doesn’t protest when her daughter hangs out on the street, drinking beer and smoking pot. She is thankful that her daughter hasn’t turned into a “proper drunk” or gotten into hard drugs. And at the tender age of thirteen, she’s admits she had sex with four partners in less than a year.

"I don't see the point in punishing her. If I ground her, I'm just punishing myself because I have to put up with her in the house," she said. "Instead, I reward her good behaviour by giving her cigarettes. If she's bad, she goes without.”

So does the bribing with cigarettes work? The mother has two other grown children she rewarded with cigarettes and she says “it works”. The other children smoke about 20 cigarettes a day. But it looks like the rewards don’t seem to apply to school, her daughter has been “excluded for bad behaviour more than 40 times.”

And get this, the mom believes her daughter’s bad behavior is because her teachers were “too soft” with her. She is now at the new school where the mom hopes that “these teachers will be stricter and she will finally get the discipline that's needed."

Yeah, we all need to pitch in and get this girl that “My Mom Sucks” mug.

(via Jezebel)

Denise Richards Reality Show Canceled

Brett Singer — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 13:00:00 GMT

It's official – you won't have Denise Richards to kick around anymore.

The E! channel has canceled the unwatchable "It's Complicated," which followed Richards as she tried raising her kids and a lot of pets… or something like that. I watched the first episode and found it mostly dull, but also somewhat depressing, since she had her young children on camera all the freakin' time. Remember that it was her ex-husband Charlie Sheen who wanted to keep the kids off of the show, but Denise took him to court and won. It's an old joke now, but when Charlie Sheen is the good parent, something is very, very wrong.

The reason for the cancellation isn't very complicated at all: nobody was watching. Page Six quotes "a source" who said, "The numbers started out pretty good - just over 1.5 million tuned in for the premiere episode…But the audience has dropped off." In other words, people would have been interested, but she just wasn't that interesting.

It's worth remembering that Denise Richards had a career as an actress for awhile. Granted, it was largely based on her looks, but she was considered one of the hotter young starlets around (think Megan Fox). Things were already on the decline career-wise when she married Sheen, so it would be easy to say that she is a victim of Hollywood ageism. But I have a feeling that some of the behavior she displayed on her reality show – the Post cites one "her confrontation with an editor for a magazine over how she [was] portrayed in the tabloid press" as a "low-light" for the series – was also her behavior in real life. That's just a guess, of course. Oh well. At least her kids won't have their lives on display anymore. Maybe she can do "Dancing with the Stars."

Source: NYPost

Image: LATimes.com

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Who Knew? Binky-Taping a Bad Idea

Amy Kuras — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 15:30:00 GMT

I must admit I briefly and un-seriously considered this, given that my son is an Olympic-level binky spitter: Two young parents in Michigan are possibly facing child abuse or neglect charges after a state trooper pulled them over and found their 4-week old baby (gender not given) with a pacifier taped to its face.

Unsurprisingly, the baby was also not secured in a car seat – it was just lying on the rear seat of the vehicle. And if they were stopped on the interstate, it's likely they were speeding.

The parents, who are 18 and 19 years old, were released pending charges. The grandparents currently have custody of the child. And they were lucky the trooper pulled them over when they did – a 4-month-old baby in suburban Seattle died last year when his 19-year-old mom taped a binky to his face.

I understand the frustration, I really do, since I spend untold minutes each day scooping my son's binky off the floor where he pitched it, rinsing it off, and replacing it, and I always have to have a couple of backups if we're out in the big germy world. But, seriously, do teen parents need to be told that not only does a baby need to stay in a car seat, but perhaps a one of those little pacifier tethers is a better solution?

Proof again that the ability to reproduce does not make you 1) a good parent or 2) possessed of common sense.

Restaurant Wars: What's OK Kid Behavior?

Amy Kuras — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 20:32:00 GMT

We don’t take the kids out to dinner a lot because, well, they are typical little kids and while they behave pretty well, they make noise and wiggle and try to stare at people over the backs of booths and so on. We try to reinforce proper behavior, but repeating "Sit down. Now. Don’t lie down on the booth. Indoor voices please," 900 times in an hourlong restaurant visit makes it not very much fun for my husband and I either. And we've all gotten The Look when we walk into a restaurant with small children, from servers or other patrons, that says "oh no, not a little kid" before they have so much as a chance to spill something.

Worse, we sometimes feel like the only parents who do enforce restaurant manners. My huge pet peeve is people who let their kids sit and play video games after the meal has been served (I saw this at a nice restaurant recently and wondered why the mom even bothered to bring her son along), followed closely by people who let their kids run around like maniacs.

Chow's Table Manners column tackled the question of whether or not restaurateurs should shut down disruptive behavor if the parent's won't recently, and while no one came forward in defense of oblivious parents, it didn’t turn into as much of a baby bashing as I expected (although I am deeply surprised at the number of people offended by public nursing or who won't eat somewhere if small children are present, no matter how well behaved).

What behavior do you expect of your kids at a restaurant, and do you ever feel judged when you walk in with your kids?

Denise Richards still trying to prove she's insane

Brett Singer — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 17:00:00 GMT

It's Friday the 13th, which must be why I'm drawn to stories about weird, evil people today.

Denise Richards isn't in the same league and Josef Fritzl or Charles Manson, but she does seem to be trying to prove to the world that she's out of her gourd. Showbiz Spy reports that the former Mrs. Charlie Sheen is, "pleading with the star to stop publicly bashing her now he has re-married…'He loves to trash me in the press and discredit me and has tried to sabotage my show. I hope that now that he's married, he can move forward and be civil.'"

Now, we're not excusing Charlie Sheen, who has his own issues, to put it mildly. Back in May he claimed that Denise emailed him asking for a sperm donation. Denise's reply was, shall we say, something less than "civil": "I don't want Charlie's prostitute-tranny-infested sperm." Nice.

She also accused Chuck of exploiting, "our entire situation." Um, you have a reality show on E! that features your kids. Pot? Kettle? Neither one of them is winning parent of the year, but I think when you put your toddler-age children on a reality show you kind of lose the right to accuse your former husband for "exploiting the situation".

I have a wacky, wacky idea for Denise and Charlie. Yes, you hate each other. Yes, it's an ugly divorce. But you have kids. Stop talking to the media for awhile. SHUT-UP.

image: Page Six

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Tracy Ullman does Dina Lohan

Brett Singer — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 18:30:00 GMT

Does an IMPRESSION of Dina Lohan. Get your minds out of the gutter, people.

"OK, when Lindsay's heart stopped at Bungalow 8, that was my fault." Funny, nasty, not safe for work.

Make sure to stay with this video until the end where Tracy/Dina turns to a fellow mom and says, "Don't patronize me Lynn... at least my daughter never shaved her head."

Found at LA Times blogs, clip is from Tracy Ullman's State of the Union on Showtime

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Your Child's Eyes They're Watching You, Watching Your Every Move

makeitadouble — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 22:30:00 GMT

To loosely paraphrase the sage lyrics of Hall and Oates remember, “Your Child’s eyes, they’re watching you, they see your every move, your child’s eyes, they’re watching you, your child’s eyes, they’re watching you watching you watching you watching you.”

I’ve written before how easy it is for adults to forget the two-ply super absorbent fluid locking surveillance sponges children can be when it comes to every dribbled vulgarity, every unconsciously uttered impropriety, every sassa-frassin' racka-frackin' carrot-chewin' fur-bearin' varmint outburst we take for granted, every breath we take, and every move we make because even when you think they won't be, oh they'll be watching you.

Sometimes the reminders are humorous as when your son toddles around the living room with your cell phone pressing the buttons with almost inherent thumb dexterity then placing it to the back of his head saying something that sounds like “Ehhhh?” but in 14-month-old-speak means, “Talk to me.” Yet sometimes what our children learn by watching us and their subsequent mimicry is far more troubling and unsettling.

The “what children see is what children will do” sermon is not a soap box I regularly stand on, but I stumbled across a video this afternoon that gave me chills from NAPCAN's latest campaign for a Child Friendly Australia called coincidentally enough “Children See, Children Do”.

Michael Little at Prevention Action said, “Children See, Children Do shows children shadowing and mimicking parents, talking on the phone, getting impatient while waiting for a train, smoking, exploding with rage, and so on – all to shed light on the aberrations of adult behavior when seen through children's impressionable eyes.”

Trust me, this video is worth the watch.

Baby Exploitation and Election 2008

Madeline Holler — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 21:28:00 GMT

It's parenting that borders on questionable. It's the kind of thing you do with your kid where you're just asking for trouble. It's shallow, it's risky, it's exploitation of your own flesh and blood. And I love it!

A freelance writer and filmmaker from New Hampshire took his itty-bitty daughter all around the Granite State during the heyday of primary election campaigning. He had one goal in mind: getting baby Dahlia photographed with each of the presidential candidates (except Mike Gravel, who he says freaks him out. Understood.)

The result is a fantastic slideshow, which, just between us parents, is rather telling about those presidential hopefuls whose arms he managed to drop his (sometimes wet) daughter into. Without even passing around the Purell! (In October, November and December? Is he insane?!)

Oh, plus a bonus pic of Dahlia with Chuck Norris, who looks very at ease with the little gal. I'll never watch "Walker, Texas Ranger" with enthusiasm again. (Wait, I have never seen the show.)

Political Nanny gives a full analysis, examining the various baby holding techniques, "Black Power" kidwear and a curious leg-gripping trend among the menfolk.

Photo: Slate.com

Why is Bad Parenting So Fascinating?

Rachael Brownell (Redsy) — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 19:12:00 GMT

Nothing rivets this generation of parents like stories of bad parenting. Not too abusive or gory, mind you, just "bad." Parents (especially famous parents) who smoke pot, spank, and generally act terribly, grab headlines and our collective attention time after time. But is it simply our desire to watch a car / train wreck thereby assuring ourselves that we are "good"? Or is it something more than that?

In extreme cases like Kate Moss or Britney Spears, there is clearly an element of car wreck about the business of keeping up with the latest drug-alcohol-bad-judgment induced incident. And honestly, compared to these two, who wouldn't feel like Mother of the Year? Sometimes it's simply impossible to look away. But let's not kid ourselves, this is the age of the Sanctimommy and our Century's answer to the Salem Witch Trials and the Trouble with Women. To be a good woman, one must be a good mother.

And to be a good mother these days is next to impossible. Not only must one be beautiful, tight, and inclined to breastfeed for ages and ages, one must take an overinvolved interest in each developmental phase, equally fascinated by potty-training and preschool applications.

Bad may be the new good, simply because "good" is an impossible goal, something elusive like the fountain of youth and orgasmic childbirth.

Well, At Least Don't Get Coke Dust On the Baby

Kelly Mills — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 23:58:00 GMT

Jezebel has been bringing us some of the burning parenting questions of the day, and today's is: When does a baby get too old to snort coke in front of it? The food for thought was inspired by a little tale from Page Six magazine told by a partyin', misbehavin', ad exec type. See, he and his buddy wanted to sneak off and do some lines, so they told their wives they would go pick up some Thai takeout. But uh oh! the wives insisted they take the babies with 'em, so off they went, one baby in a sling and another in a stroller, and as you can imagine, hilarity ensued.

Well, after I'd showered a dozen times to get the slime of these smarmy guys off me, I was ready to tackle the question. Jezebel did an excellent one-two on 'em, but I suppose I'd have to say that by the time you have to sneak away from your wives like naughty little boys to do some coke, you yourself are probably far to old to be deviating that septum. In fact, you are probably ready to be a particularly annoying episode of Intervention. But maybe I'm just an old fuddy-duddy, cuz boys will be boys. Hey, here's another one: What's the difference between these guys and this woman? I'll give you a hint: The guys have something and it's green and it makes the world go round. Oh, and another difference is that I felt sorry for this woman and her kids, but in the above story, I mostly just feel sorry for the kids.

Need to Pass a Drug Test? Use Your Kid's Pee!

Karen Murphy — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 23:34:00 GMT

Now this dad is a quick-thinker. Hoping to maybe think about the possibility of getting rehired at the Long Island trucking company that fired him three years ago, and knowing that his wayward ways with the hash pipe probably might stand in the way of his high aspirations, Brandon Costantino did what any good dad would do: he pulled his nine-year old son out of school so he could pee in a coffee cup behind a convenience-store dumpster.

Problem is, some donut-foraging police noticed something funny going on and investigated.

And they were appalled. "This was a deplorable act ... The behavior this man exposed his child to is harmful to the kid's mental and moral welfare."

What? For peeing behind a dumpster? Like it's the first time that's happened? Apparently they saw the kid unzipping behind the dumpster while a "nervous man" looked on, and immediately thought sexual assault. Okay, I can see how they get that. But... "harmful to the kid's mental and moral welfare"? For...peeing? Or was it because Honest Brandon admitted to the cops what his plan was, to use his kid's urine to pass a drug test at a company that didn't even know he was applying for a job?

And, pardon my obtuseness, but I don't get what dad was going to do with the condom in the coffee cup.

I don't know. There's gotta be more to the story here. Besides that Dad was charged with endangering the welfare of a child and marijuana possession (might as well have your drugs on you when you get your kid to pee on your behalf, otherwise what's the point?). I mean, I get that it's stupid to use someone else's urine to pass a drug test, and that it's a really really bad idea to use your kid like that, but it seems more like a bad Seinfeld episode than a stupid idea that could ruin this guy's life (not that it sounded all tha stellar to begin with).

Oh! And have a look at the outraged commenters!

photo: New York Daily News

Packers Fans Are Crappy Parents!

MetroDad — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 22:03:00 GMT

Who among us hasn't locked their young child in a room with a loaf of bread and a bucket and then gone off to watch the Packers at an Indian casino? No, not you? Really? Well, according to Yahoo news, Scott Scherer, 39, and Melanie Hardrath, 30, admitted to having locked Hardrath's 7-year-old son in his room with a loaf of bread, some peanut butter and jelly, and a bucket to use as a toilet that he would have to clean when they returned from watching the Green Bay Packers at the Potawatomi Bingo Casino.

According to Assistant District Attorney Chris Liege, who showed the judge photographs of the couple's extensive collection of Packers memorabilia, the couple had more than enough money to pay for a babysitter. Circuit Judge Jeffrey Wagner called the couple's actions "abhorrent" and ordered them both to undergo psychological screening. However, the judge only sentenced Hardrath to seven months in a county jail and Scherer to nine months. Both will serve four years of probation, with a stayed sentence of two years in prison and more extended supervision.

What the fuck is wrong with some people?

Crappy Parent? Maybe the Kids Will Forget.

Kelly Mills — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 18:12:00 GMT

Some researchers now believe people can and do repress traumatic memories, and they've identified areas of the brain they think are responsible. They also hope that in the future, we may be able to help people with debilitating memories of certain events suppress the trauma. Other experts think that really emotionally charged stuff is actually harder to forget, so suppression therapy might not be so feasible after all.

This is probably good news for horrible parents, whose offspring might have a touch of anger towards them later. But I've got a some mixed feelings about the whole thing. How do we know that suppressed memories don't continue to influence us in other ways? And while I hate the idea of folks being taken down by traumatic events in their past, I also think that our memories make us who we are, and there's some benefit to facing them and working through it.

Hey, Dr. Phil, watch your back. I'm after your job, mo fo.

Crazy Couple Dines While Kid Swelters in Car

Mike Adamick (Cry It Out!) — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 11:32:00 GMT

This story just makes me sick. Apparently a Tennessee couple didn't want to be bothered while dining with their 6-year-old, so they strapped the boy in a car on an 80-degree day and went back to their meal.

"He was sitting up in between the two front seats and he was crying," (police Sgt. John) Gass said. "He had a rope tied to one of his ankles. The child was just sweating, just soaking."

The couple, Rachel "Idiot" Gilchrist, 35, and her companion, Raymond "Moron" Minchew, 61, said the boy misbehaved, while their fellow diners had a different story -- claiming the boy was an angel. Either way, it doesn't matter. This is just disgusting. And you know why?

Because they were eating at Cracker Barrel. I can totally understand if they were out at Per Se or somewhere nice. At least somewhere with a Michelin star or two. But Cracker Barrel? There's a special place in hell reserved for these parents.

The Lonely Internet Life of Children

Rachael Brownell (Redsy) — Tue, 08 May 2007 14:38:00 GMT

The Internet may prevent institutionalization for many mamas and papas, but for kids it can be an activity that encourages more isolation than connection. According to one study, the Internet makes it more difficult for kids to relate IRL (in real life) if they spend too much time with the chatting/emailing/My Space-ing.

Even very young children who can learn important socialization skills during their young years, are damaged by too much time playing video games. I'm not sure this warrants a full Waldorf reaction, but it certainly makes me less inclined to let my young girls play Mickey Mouse computer games.

Whether it's really the Internet or other key factors (less time with parents, more television, more exposure to violence). In reaction the studies findings, schools are encouraging kids to build friendships by having friendship days. Friendship days? We're not doing our job people. And we shouldn't expect schools to pick up the slack.

Park Bench Parents Not Popular

Kelly Mills — Sun, 06 May 2007 17:29:00 GMT

Motherhood Uncensored (love the condoms) has a nice rant about those rowdy kids who smack your child and take away their toy while the parents look on benignly. It's a very self-aware send-up, and she has much more rancor for the parents who sit back and mumble, "Now, now, don't hit" than the actual bruisers themselves. These park bench parents practice only the most ineffectual forms of discipline, and she's is tired of it.

I know the frustration of watching some aggressive child try a WWF-style smackdown on my child over a dump truck at the park, so I'm completely sympathetic to this. But can I just take a moment to vent about another side of this issue? I'm mom to a very guileless and sometimes bossy child with a big personality. She is quick to respond, and usually does so at a fairly high volume. And I've watched a few kids practice the fine art of psychological warfare on her, and it pisses me off.

Some children figure out at a very early age the power of words, and what gets adult attention and what doesn't. I've observed children start to needle my child, knowing that they can get a reaction out of her. Stuff like, "I like so-and-so better than I like you" and "you don't ever get a turn" delivered in a low voice with a smile. Then when the parents rush over to see what the commotion is all about, the child looks up innocently "I just said it wasn't her turn yet" while my kid howls and looks like the crazy one. Those children don't have to use fists to fight, and they get off scot-free most of the time. I know that it's normal to experiment with power, just like it's normal to go through a biting or hitting phase. But I wish some parents were more attuned to the fact that aggression takes many forms, and just because my child yells doesn't mean she's a terror on wheels. She's responding the way we all might want to when someone taunts or intentionally hurts us. I'm sick of having to explain to my child that when another kid is behaving in an evil way, she should be honest and use her strong words to say, "Stop, I don't like it when you say that." Yeah yeah, life skills and so on, but the unfairness of how the sneaky kids just escape parental notice is really awful. I'm tempted to growl at the the little sociopaths myself.

Phew. Now I feel a little better too.

Janeen Schoeneman Needed a Boat So She Stole the Money from Her Kids

Sarah, Goon Squad Sarah — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 18:50:00 GMT

Janeen Schoeneman must have really needed a boat. Most parents don't steal from their children unless it is an emergency.

Schoeneman (allegedly) raided the trust funds of her two and three year old daughters in order to acquire the $32,000 she needed to buy a boat. A clerical error at her bank allowed her to withdraw the funds from her bank before the girls turned 18. It was money that the children's grandmother left them in her inheritance.

Nice.

What kind of person steals from their children to buy a luxury item? I can see if you needed food or rent money... possibly even drug money if you had a real problem, but a boat? Come on!

College Parenting Guru: Kids Are Like Dogs; They Need a Whuppin'

Mike Adamick (Cry It Out!) — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 20:53:00 GMT

Emmeline turns one next week, and she's already learning that a well-timed tantrum will get her anything she desires. More Cheerios. More play time. More heroin-spiked formula. So it was a great relief to read this bit of parenting advice from one Andrew Post, a senior and mass communications major at North Dakota State School Of Making Life As Simplistic As Possible -- NDSSOMLASAP for short.

Apparently I've been dealing with Emme's newfound independence with the wrong mindset. Turns out I've got to A. think of her as a dog, B. beat the crap out of her occasionally and C. force her to eat spinach so she might one day look through rose-colored glasses and see what a great dad I actually was. Thanks Andrew!

Here's just one of my favorite excerpts:

"I would be far less than a man today if Mom and Dad hadn’t taken the trouble to teach me some hard lessons.

"Parents who pamper their children and can’t stand disciplining them are literally following a recipe for disaster.

"Those children will end up (at the very least) socially inept losers. Like the people on “Jerry Springer.” "

I think he nailed it. (Oh please, oh please, oh please -- no one unearth the crazy crap I wrote in college ....)

Man Has Kids Ride in Trunk Instead of Getting a Bigger Car

Stefania Pomponi Butler (CityMama) — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 13:03:00 GMT

In another case of "WTF Were They Thinking?!," an Oregon man on vacation with his family apparently made two of his four kids ride in the trunk because his car was too small to hold all of them plus his fiancee.

Douglas Willy, was arrested after police received a tip-off from someone who saw the family at a gas station. (Letting the kids out for a bathroom/beef jerky break was probably a bad idea.) Willy explained that he decided the 12- and 13-year-old should ride in the trunk so he didn't have to take a second car. The kids had been riding in the trunk for about 20 miles before they were found.

Willy was charged with two counts of reckless endangerment (one count of being D-U-M) and released without bail.

Overachieving Sports Parents Creep Me Out

Sarah, Goon Squad Sarah — Wed, 28 Mar 2007 20:28:00 GMT

Have you guys seen that HBO documentary about the little girls that are in beauty pageants? I think I was so disturbed by it that I mentally blocked most of it, but I do remember feeling especially sorry for one little girl named Swan. Her Mom was hardcore. The parents of children in competitive sports can be even worse. Think about how scary Venus and Serena Williams' father is, or remember Emilio Estevez' dad is "The Breakfast Club"?

Here is a father that has taken the whole thing to a new level. This morning I read on Deadspin (I love Deadspin) about the dad (and coach) of a Ukrainian swimmer punching his daughter.

Well, okay, to be fair they were punching each other. Still - it isn't ideal parenting or coaching.

Listen, I think it is great to be involved in the extracurricular activities of your children, but if it is stressing you out to the point where you are getting into fist fights with your daughter, maybe it is time to take a break - or a valium or whatever.

The police in Victoria, Australia are still looking into this matter.