Lovecraft In Brooklyn

tokidokifish:

beastlyart:

moniquill:

goddessofcheese:

LOL THIS CHILD. I had to do pretty much ALL of those chores and others. It’s called helping your damn parents because they put a roof over your head and feed your ass. The only money I got until I was 16 was for lunch money and a minimum allowance that was usually about $10 a week, and that was IFFFF my mother had extra cash. 

I hate to sound like a jaded old lady at the age of 23, but kids these days are spoiled as shit.

Unpopular opinion time:

No.

This is not ok.

If you have fucked up so badly at parenting that your kid is making posts like the above, property destruction and implied violence aren’t appropriate responses. This is not how functional adult people behave.

Hannah, in the video, doesn’t respect her father.

Given that her father invades her privacy, undermines her personal agency, and doesn’t have basic trust for her….I fully comprehend why she doesn’t. Respect is earned and taught. If Hannah posts giant, frustrated rants about her chore load, it probably implies that she doesn’t feel that her efforts are appreciated or that she’s an integral member of the family or household (alienation and over individuation is a huge problem for teens; it’s part of the formation of adult identity separate from parents and kind of a huge trap.

Teenagers are frustrated because their lives are absurd. They’re expected to have adult behavior with no adult agency. Maturity and decision making are learned skills. If parents don’t like the way their teens are behaving, they need to ask themselves where that behavior was learned. If she feels entitled, what have you been doing -her entire life- to communicate the real value of what she has and should be grateful for? If she refers to the woman who cleans for you as ‘the cleaning lady’ is that because she’s noted that you treat that woman that way? Asking for payment for work is not unreasonable; it’s an understanding of capitalism. A less asshat response than ‘are you out of your mind’ would be a basic rundown of the costs of the household in terms of food, heating, etc and what percentage of that Hannah should reasonably be responsible for. Given that she has no economic agency of her own, expressing to her that her chores are a means of repayment for that.

I grew up -poor- and my parents were still giving me an allowance by the time I was ten because that’s how you teach kids how to manage earned income. I received a dollar a week (upgraded to five dollars a week when I was 12) for completing a list of chores. If they weren’t done, I didn’t get paid. Just like you don’t get paid at a job if you don’t show up. My parents also stopped buying luxury items for me around that age and made me buy them myself with earned and saved income from my chores, babysitting, recycling cans, making crafts and selling them, whatever. My parents helped me find jobs and gave me suggestions about what I could so to earn money. If Hannah is fifteen, she cannot legally obtain most forms of employment; has she been educated as to what economic opportunities are available to her? Because as a parent EDUCATING HER IS, IN FACT, YOUR JOB. You got her an application and made her apply? Did you take her with you and teach her the process of how to obtain applications and where to look for places that are hiring? Did you make sure the place you got the application from accepts underage employees (most do not) or walk her through the application process in terms of how to make herself an attractive applicant?

‘When I was your age I’d moved out of the house, lived on my own, went to college while in highschool, worked two jobs, was a volunteer fireman’…. Uh….huh. And you didn’t manage to impart any of this work ethic on your children, apparently. Also: You grew up in a very different economy, as a man. I’m willing to bet you had parents or other helpful adults who made you aware of the opportunities available to you. You are judging your daughter for having a different outcome than you had, when she sure as shit didn’t have the same input. 

Hannah is acting out in the most trivial of ways: Ranting and commiserating with friends. and even THAT outlet is being denied her. All the people above who liked and lauded this: Would you think it was awesome if Hanna was an adult woman who’d posted a frustrated rant about her significant other, and this was the significant other’s response? Or would you consider this to be emotional abuse and a redflag for accelerating relationship violence? Because that’s what this is: Emotional abuse. This is abusive parenting (looks like it’s in the wake of/a response to earlier emotionally negligent parenting, too).

If your kid is a spoiled brat? It is not the kid’s fault. Kids aren’t born spoiled brats. Parental behavior causes this. This man is reaping the seeds he has sewn, and because he’s unsatisfied with what his efforts have yielded, he’s responding with aggression and punishment and social humiliation.

That is -fucked up-. You are a -shitty parent-. You are not training your child to be a functional adult.If you child lacks life skills, if your child does not respect you, if your child cannot think critically or understand the value of money or comprehend the importance of maintaining a household THAT IS YOUR FUCKING FAULT. This kind of extreme behavior is SERIOUSLY too little too late, and an act of aggressive desperation because YOU FUCKED UP.

If I were advising Hannah in this situation? I’d be helping her figure out ways to get the fuck away from these people and hook her up with resources that would teach her actual life skills.

Worth noting? This dude is shooting in what is clearly a residential area. That is unsound (though not necessarily criminal in his locality) behavior. This is not something to be celebrated. Property destruction and implied violence are not things to be celebrated. Emotional abuse in response to shitty teen behavior that results from bad parenting in the first place is not something to be celebrated.

This whole fucking family needs to get to family counseling STAT.

(deleted some other comments so this doesn’t explode my layout but they were all along the lines of “yay oldschool dad she deserves it!” etc.)

I watched this video earlier and… yeah, I had a hard time being enthused about his reaction. It made me pretty uncomfortable, and I agree with most of moniquill’s points.

I had to do all this shit and more when I was a kid too, and I never was paid or asked for allowance, I got a job at… sixteen or seventeen and have held one or another through school and college since then. But you know what? My parents didn’t publicly humiliate me or put bullets through my laptop to drive home a point. The rants I wrote as a teenager make his daughter look like a saint, too.

My mom and I have a great and very respectful relationship now, and she was always the hard-ass on me compared to my dad, but she didn’t use shitty tactics like this.

tokidokifish: So apparently some dude took his daughter’s laptop and shot it.

hpthugcraft: Seems reasonable.

tokidokifish: That is a totally reasonable response to your teenage daughter bitching on Facebook.

hpthugcraft: It is after a fifth of vodka.

tokidokifish: Nothing terrifyingly abusive about that.

hpthugcraft: Well hey, at least he didn’t shoot his daughter.

hpthugcraft: Dude has limits.

tokidokifish: At the moment.

hpthugcraft: Yes.

Okay, here is the thing.  Neither of them were really ‘correct’ in this situation.

 Hannah has every right to rant about what she feels is unfair treatment however, and maybe this is just me, facebook is not the place to air grievances.  Sure, write an e-mail/letter to a friend, call/text close friends, write it in a journal, etc.  Do not post your problems with others on a site where many people can see it, mostly people you do not know well.  I just find that rude, childish, and disrespectful.  

She also should have talked to her parents about how she felt.  Maybe she did and was ignored.  If that is the case, her parents are at fault for not listening to her and not explaining that these chores are a means of payment for the luxury items she receives.   

I never had ‘chores’ growing up.  There were things around the house I helped just because it was the right thing to do.  If there were dishes in the sink, I washed them.  If the floors were dirty, I swept or vacuumed them.  I made my bed and cleaned my room often.  I helped with dinner.  I took out the trash, mowed the lawn, trimmed the bushes, and more.  I was never told I had to do these things.  I was asked at times but never told and never received allowance.  

But, here is the thing: my mother never sat me down and said, “I provide food, shelter, clothing, and more for you.  You help me out around the house as payment for those things.”  She never had to.  I was somewhat intelligent.  I understood that’s how the world worked.  You work for the things you receive.  

I didn’t have a laptop until I was eighteen and I bought it myself.  I didn’t even have a cell phone until I was sixteen and the phone and one year service plan were my Christmas gifts for that year.  After that plan ran out, I paid for my own phone and any upgrades I wanted.  I bought my own car at sixteen.  I paid for my own gas and insurance.  I worked a volunteer job and a paying job while attending high school (honors and AP classes) and participating in numerous extracurricular activities.  I still found the time to help out around the house even though it really was my only down time.  I would do homework until at least one in the morning and wake up at five to get to school.  Then, I worked several jobs to pay for college while earning two degrees in four years from a private university.  

When I would come home from school breaks, I would be there helping my mother with the cooking, cleaning, or yard maintenance. 

Hannah has to make a few beds, wipe off the counter tops, sweep, do some dishes (with a dishwasher), and make coffee.  Then, she is too tired to do anything else?  She goes to sleep at ten?  Seriously?  I just cannot wrap my head around that.  It doesn’t make any sense.  

I’m sorry.  I understand that this guy isn’t the best parent but I’m sick of people just blaming the parents for shit like this.  Teenagers still have functioning brains.  They don’t need things spelled out for them like they are toddlers.  Capitalism is taught in schools.  Teenagers should be able to make that connection and apply it to their lives.  If they don’t understand, they should be able to sit down and have a conversation with their parents.  What Hannah did was the teenager equivalent of a child having a temper tantrum in a public place.  

Her father did the same thing.  However, I still feel he should have taken her computer away.  I would handle the situation by either taking the computer away and allowing her to earn it back or giving it away and having her earn the money to buy her own.  The fact that he destroyed a good computer actually pissed me off.  I had to struggle to come up with the money to buy a new laptop when my first one crashed and I needed one for school.  I feel like giving it to someone who needed it would have been better.  

Yes, these aren’t the best parents.  I know that.  But, I am sick of all of the blame being put onto the parents when their children are lazy brats who think they are entitled to luxuries without earning them.  Most learning during our pre-teen and teenage years comes from peers.  Think about it.  Most time during these years are spent around people their own age at school.  This is why there is so much focus on battling peer pressure during high school.  If you’re surrounded by people who have a sense of entitlement and you are ignorant, you are probably going to have a sense of entitlement no matter what your parents say.  You can lead a horse to water but, if his friends aren’t drinking, he probably won’t drink either.

I actually find it laughable that people think parents should explain how to collect job applications and fill them out.  That is just self-explanatory.  Parents should help their children prepare for a job interview, tell them to ask for a manager when turning in an application, to go during times managers are usually working, and the best way to dress.  However, these change over time.  I actually did research on my own.  There are plenty of helpful guides online that are probably more applicable to current trends and procedures than when parents were looking for jobs.

What I’m trying to say is that I don’t agree with the father’s reaction, however, I am sick of young people throwing hissy fits because they feel they should have everything but not work for it.  I am also sick of parents using the internet to attempt to ‘discipline’ their children.  

Also, I’m sick of people throwing the term ‘abusive parenting’ around.  I’m not even going to go into that one.  Just shut the fuck up about that.  

(via brofisting)