Someone Hand Me The Chapped Ass Cream, Please?
As I was panting away at the gym yesterday morning on the elliptical I caught the story of Karen Klein on HLN. As you all might know, she is the bus monitor whose bullying video went viral, causing a shitstorm (thanks Izaak Mak for reminding me of this great term!) of outrage. And while I am appalled and horrified at the psychopathic behavior displayed by these children towards their elder, what really chapped my ass was the Facebook and Twitter comments accompanying the story. The few that made it to the big time airwaves (at least when I was watching it) launched an attack on the bullies’ parents. I can’t recall the exact words but the gist was that the parents suck ass and should be made to suffer the same horrors as the unfortunate Ms. Klein.
I used to be one of those finger-pointing blamers. I’d read about various criminals and degenerate scumbuckets and say, “Wow, that guy’s dad probably beat him when he was little,” or wonder out loud, “That crack whore’s mother must have been a whore, too.” I patted myself on the back for being such a great parent because my little darlings weren’t pregnant drug dealing gangsters. My children were straight A students who were always respectful to their elders and peers. They were a reflection of my values and everything I had taught them had seemed to take root: don’t do drugs, don’t be a bully, don’t have sex, be a nice person, look out for the little guys, mind your manners. Besides the sex thing (I do have children and they didn’t come from the cabbage patch) I walk the talk. Since I am such a paragon of virtue (ha ha!) my children should be virtual mirror images of me and do exactly as I do.
Funny how it must have slipped my mind when I went out and bought a bag of chunky, in front of my kids, and then sold my unused ditch weed to one of my friends on school property. Monkey see, monkey do? According to the wise tweeters of Twitter and a plethora of Facebook philosophers my child must not have a mind of her own and lacks free will. Surely she must have seen me do the same thing and decided that if it was good enough for mother, it’s good enough for her. So I should go to jail, lose my pharmacist license and do two years probation for my child’s actions because surely she never got the idea of committing a crime from anywhere else.
I have forever folded my hand in the parental blame game. It was a difficult lesson for me to learn and I apologize to all the parents I have slandered in the past. I am not perfect and I now expect my kids to falter, just as I do. I refuse to take credit for the bad and the good that my children do. I can only provide a compass and instructions on how to use it. It’s up to them to decide where they want to go. The good upstanding folk spouting naïve judgements on social media have either had outstanding luck or are smoking crack. It is not merely nurture that decides a person’s character, although if it were, I’d now be the proud parent of cursing sailors who do good deeds, recycle and shun all things illegal.
My rant is a slant away from the rest of the nation’s reactions of justified anger and outrage. And those boys deserve some harsh consequences for their actions but leave their parents out of it.
were they even all boy bullies? and I wonder who was taking the video… I stopped watching the vid after she started crying and ragged on her ass about that… all in all, it seems she held up pretty well, considering, though, like I said, I didn’t see her by the end of the ride!!! A pretty ugly day on the bus!!! And how come the driver didn’t come to her rescue‽‽‽
happy weekend, my favorite drug dealer, legal or no!!!
Totally agree with your rant, but…. it’s the parents who defend their little monsters when they clearly need to be reprimanded that burn my butt. Or the ones who let their brats swing from the chandeliers or torture the dog’s or cat’s without batting an eye. And I agree with the previous question -why the driver didn’t help?
Couldn’t agree more, GG…actions without consequences are even worse!
I felt it was unnecessary to watch the video and feed the stats but I could tell it was awful by what everyone has been relaying. I wonder about the driver also. I am disgusted with every aspect of this event. My empathy for Ms. Klein is vast but I can’t imagine how she must feel now that everyone on the planet can witness her degradation. That is the worst part of this mess and I wonder how she will deal with her overnight “celebrity”…I’d take that money and move to a remote village on another continent for a few years.
Happy rest of the weekend to you, fractal goddess!
Sorry, BK, my reply finger hit the wrong button on my phone and I commented to my post, not you! Oops! Please see below…(damn it, I’m tired…argh!)
Excellent post! I don’t have kids, never will have kids… But I realized long ago that Jeffrey Dahmer’s (step)parents did ***NOT*** raise him to be a murdering cannibal. Parents cannot be blamed for the sins of their children.
Hear, hear, fes! I realize that parents can bestow their kids with skewed opinions but the kids can do with them what they will. And there are lots of crappy parents. But even the best can raise bad people or people who make mistakes despite their best efforts.
Word.
Back in the day, the bus lady was old and ugly and mean and she knew it. If any kid got out of line that was it! She meant business and if any bratty kid tried to sass her she would eat them for lunch and spit them out…just like that. Kids are kids and parents are not perfect and if you have to be tough to be a bus monitor.
By the way….great post….I hate hypocrites and I love drug dealers!
HAHAHAHA! We didn’t even have a bus monitor, our bus drivers were scary and mean…they kicked you off the bus if you even looked at them funny. These days they can’t do that or they’d get sued or the kids would firebomb the bus. It seems things have gotten so out of hand, in all aspects of life…sigh.
Thanks for the love, sugar pie!
Yep, I stopped judging parents when I had my own child but I admit the first thing that came to mind when I heard about the video (haven’t watched it, and won’t) was “what have their parents taught these children?”. Obviously they don’t teach them how to bully, but they maybe DO need to teach some compassion….?
Maybe they had but the little maniacs ignored it? I personally feel compassion and empathy have to come from within or if it can be learned it’s got to be a hard lesson from experience. And these kids aren’t going to get any from this, that’s for certain. But hopefully they have learned just how awful their actions are and it will make them better people.