When I was your age……

On Friday I posted a rambling about how there was a report how people were spanked as children grew up to troubled people.  I feel there is a lack of disrespect in the youth today.  I know I sound like our parents and our grandparents talking about us when were kids.  I don’t think that is the case.  I would have never acted like some of the teenagers act today.  They have a crazy sense of entitlement and ALWAYS want something for nothing.  It could definitely be something they pick up from their surroundings or is taught from their parents.

This brings me to Tommy Jordan, a North Carolina dad who posted this video on You Tube that went viral last week.  In the video Jordan was simply responding to a Facebook post that his daughter posted on her wall about the poor treatment that she receives from her parents.  To start the video Jordan reads the post that his daughter put on the web.  It could have been the most disrespectful letter I have ever seen.  The language in the letter did not surprise me much as I am around teenagers all the time and their mouths are constantly yapping profanities.  Although Jordan seemed quite surprised by the language.  At the end of the video Jordan stood up and fired 8 shots from his .45 caliber gun into his daughter’s laptop as punishment, after voicing his disappointment in his daughter.

I totally agree with Jordan’s approach to this situation.  The gun play may have been a little bit over the top but everything else was spot on.  Teenagers of today use technology today to be rebellious for the whole world to see and they feel invincible when it comes to how they act.  I can honestly say that I never did that as a teenager.  For one thing, I didn’t have the technology that 15 year Hannah Jordan has, mainly because it wasn’t around yet.  If I wanted to post something like that I would have to type it, make copies and mail it.  Secondly, if I ever got out of line my parents would break their foot off in my ass.  They wouldn’t only do it if I disrespected them, they would do it if I disrespected anybody.

I wouldn’t not say that my brother and I were spoiled as kids but, we never went without.  We both had paper routes when we were kids.  We both had jobs at the age of 15 and have had a job ever since.  We always did chores around the house and when it snowed outside we were charged with shoveling the snow.  When we were done we did not get a thank you (maybe sometimes we did) or a paycheck.  What we got was a roof over our head, meals to eat, clothes on our back, summer vacations, and a private school education.  If you do the math, I think we made out in the deal.  But we also learned to respect our parents and the satisfaction of a job well done.

Not everyone knows the underlying issues that face the Jordan’s.  Mr. Jordan alluded to the fact that this has been a problem before, with his daughter running her mouth on Facebook.  There are issues there that are causing this teen rebellion.  It is obviously a split family with a half sibling.  Hannah may be feeling a little bit like Cinderella.  However, Ms. Jordan obviously was not testing boundaries because there aren’t any.  Sure she has chores, that’s just work, but there have been times she disrespected someone and it was told to her that it wasn’t her fault, and that if it happened again she would be grounded.  I think her behavior was most likely let go to unbearable levels because her parents were divorced and she was playing them against each other.  Like I said, nobody knows what truly is going on.  However, it must have reached a tipping point which led to Mr. Jordan’s actions.  He said in the video that he warned Hannah that the next time something like this would happen the response would be more severe.  It obviously was. 

As I stated before I thought Tommy Jordan’s approach was phenomenal.  His daughter decided to air the family’s dirty laundry on the internet to her friends without any regard to the repercussions.  Tommy Jordan simply complied to this tactic.  I have never given anybody any parenting advice, unless they asked for it.  My only stipulation to that is everyone else do the same in return.  The same should hold true for Mr. Jordan.

3D
Coming Right Atcha!

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