So, by now, we’ve all heard about that horrible man who made a video shooting his daughter’s laptop because… he was upset over something she said about him on Facebook. Something he only even knew about because he hacked into her account somehow, apparently.
Perhaps even more disturbing than the idea this even happened is that so many people out there are praising him for doing this! Even that article, while condemning his actions, comes at it from an angle of “we understand, teenagers are such awful people and it’s tough to get through to them!”
So, let’s review. Man gets upset that his daughter got frustrated with him. (A daughter frustrated with her father about something! So unheard of!). Daughter vented her frustrations on Facebook in an apparently non-public message (because it’s not like looking down your Facebook feed at any given time won’t turn up at least ten similar vents about someone’s family or friends!). Daughter is apparently also not helping around the house as much as her father would like (again, such unheard of problems! Good God!). So far, the daughter’s whole “crime” seems to be… speaking freely and not being subject to unpaid, pointless, unappreciated labor. Surely she must have done something else… no, that’s about it. So what does her supposedly mature and responsible dad do? He steals and destroys her property (yes, her property), destroys it with a deadly weapon, and does so in a video he uploads publicly. Remember, her Facebook posting was non-public, but his video is public. She just didn’t do some chores, but he took something of hers and destroyed it.
Yet, considering all this… so many people think HE is the hero here?
It is such a sobering reminder of, really, just how hated teenagers are. I shouldn’t even need to point out that he’s the one who’s completely out of control here. But so many support him. Why? Because for some reason she deserved it because she was “disrespectful to her parents”. It’s an obligation of respect that serves only to make adults happy and comfortable and preserving what they think is a “right” to maintain superiority over those younger, just because they lived longer. In reality, there is absolutely no other “value” to maintaining blind respect or reverence towards parents.
And parents who steal and destroy your property because you vented to your friends about them are not people deserving of respect, ever. It doesn’t matter how “spoiled” everyone thinks the girl must be, and they’re hearing only from her dad on that one anyway. And it’s common to think of teens in general as spoiled and therefore deserving of bad things that happen to them. And a lot of bad things do happen to them, usually because of or perpetuated by this very mindset.
But there’s another thing about this that terrifies me. That is that it will happen again and this is not the first time. Just a few months ago, there was another viral video depicting child abuse, of Texas family court judge William Adams beating his 16-year-old daughter (who has cerebral palsy) for being online and downloading things. The daughter herself put that video up in that case, and thankfully, the judge did not get nearly the accolades the above laptop shooter did, but there were some. Numerous stories come out of parents forcing their teens to stand on the side of the road holding a sign saying “I Get Bad Grades” or something similar. There’s Amy Chua, too, proudly talking about her excruciating control of her children. A few years back, there was Jane Hambleton who stole and sold her son’s car because she saw a beer bottle in it. And every single one of these parents wears proudly the title of being “mean” and “tough” toward their kids, and they have a fair share of teen-hating fans out there praising them and, sooner or later, perhaps emulating them. And they probably are, as there are so many more YouTube videos of parents humiliating their kids, whether for discipline or just some sick pleasure. They don’t all go viral, but it’s frighteningly condoned.
This is why we have to continue to say a big loud NO to all of this. You don’t need to be a parent to see this kind of treatment is wrong. Lots of parents would never dream of doing something like any of this, no matter how frustrating the family environment gets. Here’s one great parent who knows full well this sort of thing is horrible!
And, parent or not, we all need to call out people who refuse to accept the fact that teenagers are respectable people, no matter how “surly” or “bratty” or “impossible” their parents or others think they might be. There’s no reason that innocent young girl has to have her father (someone who’s supposed to be loving and nurturing, right?) and millions of his sadistic online fans do this to her. How many more like her will there be? When will this stop?
You go, Girl!
Amen!
Yes. This. I am a mother of teenagers (15 and 18). SO THIS.
Seriously? You consider this child abuse? I mean. Really? Listen, i’m against anti-ageism and all, but considering this abuse is…silly. Did he do illegal property damage? Maybe. Did he over react? Certainly. But this entire article was inflammatory and a ridiculous over reaction.
And comparing this situation to the Judge William Adams child abuse videos is stupid. It is nothing like this video. Let me count the ways.
First, This video was uploaded by the parent, the Adams video was uploaded by the abused child.
Second, in this video the adult acted harshly, but didn’t act out his aggression on his child (i.e. physical abuse). In the second video, the child was fucking PHYSICALLY ABUSED.
Third, in this video, the adult is being praised (by the majority, whether right or wrong) for his actions. In the Adams video, the adults actions received largely negative reactions.
Right, so, in the future, try not to be so extreme with your writing. Sure, it makes for an interesting read, but the way you’ve written it, it’s like you’ve turned a flat tire into a car accident at highway speeds. Yes, both are ‘car problems’ but one is obviously more serious than the other.
Of course the Tommy Jordan video isn’t as bad as the William Adam’s video: the destruction of irreplaceable property (the victim’s data) and menacing with a deadly weapon is not nearly as serious as torture, which is what the Adam’s video was (would it constitute torture if done to a prisoner of war? I think so, and children and teenagers do not deserve less regard than enemy soldiers.)
Katrina did not suggest otherwise – she offered the Adam’s video as another example of a viral child abuse video, she did not equate the two or even draw a substantive comparison between them.
Pointing to examples like the Adam’s episode to minimize lesser abuses, or to set a high minimum threshold for abuse, is ridiculous.
Not all property destruction is abuse: destruction of commercial property, especially that belonging to a large corporation, out of negligence, or non-personal political motive, or theft, or artistic expression, or whatever, is not designed to bring anguish and deep humiliation to an individual. It is not felt to be a grievous degradation or a loss of a profoundly personal manner, or a public humiliation.
What Tommy Jordon did however was those things. It was designed to publicly humiliate and degrade Hannah Jordan and rob her of something deeply personal.
A personal laptop is not just any piece of property, but one of the most intimate things most people own. Absent remote storage online, it has the function of a personal diary, a personal photo album, a file cabinet of all of one’s scholastic and academic work, a record of many important conversations with friends – a physical repository of someone’s memories and thoughts. It is also a vital means of communication and connection to people, especially for someone who cannot travel locally or long distance alone of their own accord without “permission”, who likely does not have her own cell phone that can be used without restriction. Destroying someone’s laptop is a good way of shattering their life if they have no way to replace it, no smart phone, no ability to leave their own “home” on demand at any time, and do not have cloud storage. And that’s the position that Hannah Jordan is likely in given her tyrannical parents. And this was done deliberately, not for profit or by negligence, but out of hatred and spite, out of a desire to destroy.
Yes, that is definitely abuse.
Tommy Jordan’s case shares another crucial commonality with Williams Adam’s. Both believe that they are entitled to absolute dominion over their daughters, and view any lack of submission as justification for extreme and brutal force against them. They cast their daughters in the role of “rebels” to their own mini-despotism, thinking their alleged sovereignty over their daughters something that any slight failure to grovel to must be stamped out. This disgusting, arrogant, egocentric view of children as little more than talking property that you can’t sell (not outright anyways) and twisted entitlement is what is behind both their actions. This is the core failure of parenting without youth rights that we should recognize, name, confront and educate people to end it like all other forms of arbitrary and unjustifiable subjugation.
i watched that video, and the little shreads of faith i had in the human race are finily gone. even doc phil’s an a**hole. how do you people do this without lousing your faith in humanity, or just thinking you cant make a gang? i realy gota know.
(p.s.: if enyone responds, please do so here, i forgot my email password. thanks)