Parents Behaving Badly

William and Rachel Blow (no relation to 80’s rap superstar Kurtis) came up with a novel solution to their teenage son’s rambunctious behavior. They chained him up. Fortunately, the boy’s sister reported this to local police, who freed him from his shackles, and gave the Blows some of their own medicine. Unfortunately, the parents were released on bail. Which, you know, really Blows. (Thanks, I’ll be here all week, two drink minimum and don’t forget to tip your waitress.)

No word on whether the two kids were removed from the home and placed with foster parents. I’ll leave you all with this…William E. Blow…Will E. Blow…heh.

Michigan, as it turns out, suffered very little damage from Hurricane Katrina. This came as a surprise to Kim Horn, who received a house, cash, and other goods after reporting to charities that she was a victim of Katrina. Turns out Ms. Horn and her 6 year old daughter moved to Mason, Michigan nine days before Katrina came ashore.

Now, maybe I’m insensitive to the sufferings of others, but having to run down to the 8-Mile Walmart and shell out a buck fifty for a new can of AquaNet because a breeze messed up your bouffant is not the same as having everything you know and love wiped off the face of the earth by a massive storm.

Seriously, Michigan prosecutors – don’t put this woman in jail. Put her on a plane, send her down to New Orleans, give her a mop, and tell her to get to cleanin’. The Superdome would be a good place for her to start.

When I sent out my Welcome message for our new writers last week, I didn’t know that I’d be bringing on a sixth person. But then LizBeth Finn-Arnold told me she wanted to pitch in. As big a fan as I am of her writing, there was no way I could say no. She’s been blogging since the weekend, and we hope she continues on for many a month to come. Welcome to the team, LizBeth!

On a separate note, thanks to the folks in the Delphi Forum The Isle of Whack (registration required) for pimping our blog. We’re not worthy! We’re not worthy! Oh, no, wait – we ARE worthy. These people, on the other hand? SO not worthy.

I’ve been looking for the opportunity to apply the phrase “walking pile of amphibian shit” to someone; thanks, Michelle Stevenson, for stepping up! Stevenson was arrested for selling thousands of obscene photos of her three children to a kiddie porn website. Also nabbed was the site owner, Brian Cobb. Both face up to 10 years in prison.

The kids have been placed in the care of the Alabama Department of Human Resources, which seems like a really strange name for their Child Protective Services, unless Alabama has some really fucked up child labor laws, which is quite possible considering that, hey, it’s Alabama. I don’t know how Ms. Stevenson will fare in prison, but Mr. Cobb, if you’re reading this…the inmates LUUUUURVE them some child molesters. Literally. If you get my drift.

Expect to see Daniel Herbert and his son Josh on the short list for this year’s Darwin Awards. Daniel, you see, is of the opinion that having a 450-pound black bear as a housepet is a good idea. But wait! It gets better! Daniel also thinks that his ursine buddy is an excellent sparing partner for his son, a high school wrestler. Not to worry, folks – the bear has been de-clawed, and if things get too rough “knows when to stop”.

De-clawed? Yes. De-fanged? Nope. I’m adding “pet+bear+mauls+dumbass+family” to my daily Google searches. To paraphrase another well-known bear – the ranger’s not going to be happy, Yogi.

I…I just don’t know where to begin with this one. It’s not as if anyone depicted in this article about Ted Beckham’s new book, David Beckham: My Son, is an outright horrible parent. But every time I re-read this article, I feel like a fresh layer of slime has grown over my flesh.

Perhaps it’s the revelation that David Beckham was “pale and shattered” upon realizing Victoria “Posh Spice” Beckham was pregnant. Perhaps it’s that both he and his parents were more concerned about the impact this would have on his football career than on the health of Victoria and the unborn child. Perhaps it comes from reading that Ted Beckham likes to smack his children about – immediately followed by the unexpected news that “he and his son have drifted apart in recent years”. Apparently, they get along well enough for Ted Beckham to milk his son’s fame for all it’s worth.

Maybe I’m just in a mood. Maybe I’m resisting the article’s counter-protestations about David Beckham being a great dad due to his alleged philandering. All the crap about both Beckham dads being stern disciplinarians doesn’t help. Nor does the reeking stench of capitalism that surrounds the whole enterprise of writing about your famous offspring. No matter how optimistic I try to be, I can’t break the suspicion that there’s something wrong – and I mean “wrong” in a bold, Shakespearean fashion – with this “happy family”. Am I cracked?

So who’s behaving badly here: 30-year-old Shawntay Smith, or the nameless live-in boyfriend to whom she took the Ginsu? It’s impossible to say. This New York Post article won’t specify if the boyfriend is even the father of her current child; it only emphasizes that Smith is “petite”, and that her beau is Hulk Hogan-esque. That does nothing to tell us why Smith felt compelled to whip out a kitchen knife during a fight and go all Lizzy Borden on his shoulder. All I’m hoping is that Smith’s other four children weren’t in the Bronx apartment at the time of the assault.

Come on, newspeople, throw us a bone here. Was she defending herself from a physical attack? Did he leave the toilet seat up? Stories of bad-behaving parents are no fun when we don’t know who to blame! I’ve got a whole sack of schadenfreude here taking up valuable real estate!

A word about Colorado City. It’s neither in Colorado, nor is it much of a city. But if you have a hankerin’ to marry two or three of your closest sweethearts and raise you some young ‘uns, it’s your kind of town. Plus, if Sheriff Sam Roundy’s on the job, you can abuse your kids as you like and not have to worry about getting busted.

Apparently, Roundy wasn’t aware that he was “supposed to” report all sexual abuse cases that he had investigated over the years to the Utah Division of Child and Family Services. Details! Who has time for details when you’re the law in the vast sprawling megalopolis of Colorado City! Plus, you know, it’s hard to devote 100% to your job when you have three wives and (hold on – need to break out the calculator) 21 kids. Work-life balance is important, you know.

Still, you gotta feel bad for the guy. Imagine the fights in his house when Wife #1 wants to watch Oprah, Wife #2 wants to watch Ellen, and Wife #3 wants to watch Hee Haw. Hope he has TiVo.

For many people, Sunday is a day to be spent contemplating the nature of God. For Reverend Arthur Michalka, it’s a chance to scare the bejesus (no pun intended – ok, you got me, BIG pun intended) out of some kids.The good reverend stuck 15 kids in the hand with an unsterilized pin to show the youngsters the pain that Jesus suffered when he was crucified.

Now, priests will be priests, and if we were to do a website about priests behaving badly we’d need a server the size of the Death Star. What puzzles me about this article was that the priest stuck 15 kids with a needle…and what were the parents doing while this was going on? Did the altar boys slip a Roofie into the sacramental wine? Parents out there – as a reminder, it’s OK to stop priests from hurting your kids! God won’t get mad!

Plans to bring the church’s Sunday School class to the zoo and toss kids into the lion’s cage as part of the Daniel lesson have been cancelled.

Holy flirting snit. I’m having a hard time believing that this advice column letter in the Los Angeles Times is real. Writing to Money Talk editor Liz Pulliam Weston, a concerned reader wants to know what to do about her credit rating, which was shot to hell after her parents opened up a credit card in her name and maxed it out. Needless to say, they didn’t pay a dime on it, and the bank closed the account – a huge black mark on a credit report, and a damaging blow to the child’s FICO score. Fortunately, Liz Pulliam Weston, unlike certain other advice columnists, isn’t afraid to pull punches. “On a $200,000 loan, you’d be paying nearly 50% more each month because of your parents’ fraud. And let’s not mince words, because that’s exactly what this is. They may believe they had the best intentions in the world — that they would somehow pay the money back and you’d never be affected — but the fact remains that honest people don’t take out credit cards in other people’s names.”

Damn, mom and dad. You got served. Be grateful that you also didn’t get served time in the county jail.

After reading this story, I came to a few conclusions. Well, that’s not entirely true. First I threw up in my trash can, THEN I came to a few conclusions.

One: there’s nothing wrong with these two parents that I couldn’t fix – with a pair of pliers and a blowtorch.
Two: after reading this piece, Washington D.C.’s response to Katrina suddenly made perfect sense.
Three: Public Defender McKee has given atheists all the ammo they need to prove that the soul does not exist.
Four: Back to the whole pliers and blowtorch thing – after reading Price’s comments, I’d start with her tongue.

Thanks (I suppose) to www.crazedparent.org for the article.

Meet Frank and Marylynnette (my fingers hurt from typing her name) Barney, who apparently took out their deep-rooted issues with their unfortunate monikers on their foster kid. Neighbor Loretta Kearns began picking up signals from this lovely couple’s nanny cam on her home security system. What she saw were scenes of the Barneys beating the shit out of the 15 year-old boy in their care. The Kearns made a couple of phone calls, and the unsuspecting Barneys ended up getting “Punk’d” by the Chicago Police Department.

Making this even more charming: the fact that the poor kid has an IQ of 45. But let’s not be too hard on the Barneys. After all, their lawyers said that they “never intended to harm the child”. Which…yeah, I can see that, because when I don’t intend to hurt people I make sure to hit them with my belt, fists, or a large wooden paddle, rather than, say, throw a Nerf ball at them. And according to defense lawyer George Lynch, such abuse was OK, since the nuns in Catholic school used to give the kids a good beatin’ with a strap when he was a lad. I’m no lawyer, but I’d like to suggest to Mr. Lynch that he not use this particular stream of logic if he’s ever called upon to defend a child-molesting priest.

The story has a happy ending; the boy is living with a new family and plans to graduate high school. Meanwhile, the Barneys have lost their jobs, filed for bankruptcy, and are currently sitting in lockup waiting for sentencing. Have fun in prison, Frank and Marylynnette; hope you enjoy “tossin’ salads”!

Yep, you got it right, folks: Preston Michael Spears Federline. Good ol’ P.M.S. Federline.

Let the schoolyard hazings begin.

I bought Smashed by Koren Zailckas earlier this year, when it was shaping up to be the Next Big Thing in the personal memoir book market. I never finished it. I got about 10 pages into it and tossed it aside. The writing had a certain beauty, but also came off as pompous and overwrought. Now, after reading some of the comments on Amazon.com, I wish I’d stuck it out, at least to grok the parental angle. One dissatisfied reader says the book is a classic case of Parents Behaving Badly:

The book bothered me mostly because the parents seemed so unaware and unworried, beginning when their daughter came home hungover at 14, later had to have her stomach pumped and even later triggered a roommate phone call voicing concern over their daughter’s drinking. I wonder how parents could ship this child off to college with a relatively unlimited bar budget. Perhaps Zailckas, who wrote the book at age 23, is not yet in a place to have enough perspective on her life and her upbringing.

The review by BlogCritics seems to confirm that Zailckas’ parents were enablers:

Relive the ’80s and ’90s as Zailckas bluffs her talented, loner way through grade school and high school, her parents concerned but also enabling (to be precise, her mother is shaming, her father indulgent).

In her acknowledgments, she thanks them for sticking with her. But in the book, they treat her abuse by socializing it: When she and a friend get hammered – and discovered – her parents don’t give her the expected lecture; rather, they order her a beer.

Yikes. Sounds like classic PBB material, no?

I don’t blame these parents to going for bat for their kid. Okay, it’s a little questionable insisting that a 151-lb. 11-year-old be allowed to play flag football in clear violation of the weight limit. Still, given that the limit is 150 lbs., it’s not unreasonable for Kyle St. Peter’s father, Kevin St. Peter, to ask the Sterling Heights, Michigan league to re-weigh him. What is questionable is clogging up our court system with frivolous lawsuits over FLAG FOOTBALL. Come on, people – it’s not even like it’s a real sport! And the parents are suing in Macomb County Court alleging that they’ve violated the kid’s civil rights! Seriously, can’t the judge dismiss this case with prejudice on the grounds of “you’ve got to be fucking kidding me”?

(Hat tip: Bad Jocks)