I’d find out whether it was just blowing off steam – in which case a Very Serious Discussion about the pragmatic unsoundness of blowing off steam in ways that leave a persistent record that can come back to haunt you would ensue – or if she actually felt that way, in which case a serious discussion of what her responsibilities actually are, how much time and effort they take, and how the dollar value of benefits like the laptop and effort I’ve put into it and other stuff that’s “a favor” and not just “being a responsible parent” compares to minimum wage (favorably, from the sound of it) would ensue. In either case, if the post was more broadly visible than a handful of her friends or if I otherwise felt the situation was one to take seriously, I might require a follow-up post correcting the factual errors in her previous statement about what is being asked of her and what favors are being done for her that shows she’s learned something from this (maybe hand-written and then her laptop given back to post it).

This…

Her father is fucking abusive. His concern is clearly not that she has a sense of entitlement, a lack of perspective, and little thought for the consequences of her actions. It’s that she isn’t sufficiently cowed and deferential to him. That’s not how grown-ups parent.)

I was thinking about doing a video response. My core thesis:

“You did this to ‘teach her a lesson.’ Okay, let’s see, what lessons did you teach her:

1) guns are toys.
2) she has no right to privacy or to private thoughts or feelings that people with power over her don’t approve of.
3) when people make you mad, hurting them is an appropriate response IF you can get away with it.
4) doing impulsive, destructive things with potentially far-reaching consequences because you’re angry and have an offended sense of entitlement is perfectly fine…you just have to wait until you’re older.”

He literally did the exact same thing she did. Assuming she actually believes the stuff she supposedly said and wasn’t just blowing off steam…well, wonder where she learned that attitude?

1) Teenagers can be such a pain. Especially when they are cowboyhat wearing parents.

2) I’m glad this video has gotten 23 million views. That tells us society has it’s act together because I’m sure there was nothing else important to do.

3) I think it’s funny that this guy has a small speech aphasia related to the word “responsibility”.

I assume child protective services have already rescued the children from this highly functional family!

More parenting advice here: http://youtu.be/0K-X4DwRxPc

Slightly off-topic, but I’m morbidly curious to hear your take on that “dad shoots daughter’s laptop” video that’s apparently gone viral in the last few days. I’m disgusted and appalled both by the father’s actions and attitude and by the fact that most of my classmates think it’s hilarious and awesome, and I could use some kind of sanity balancing that out. 🙁