Parents Behaving Badly

Direct from Heaven, it’s…the Armor of God PJs! Perfect for your little Crusader or Crusaderette (who will, of course, remain at home squeezing out babies while her husband slays the Muslims and the Atheists, natch). Why not? It’s been a long time since we’ve had a good children’s crusade.

Personally, I think they got the costumes wrong. Shouldn’t the text on the belts read "Chastity"?

Tip to Christian parents: Do not – repeat, do NOT – pack these pajamas with you on your missionary trip to Iraq. They may not go over as well as you planned.

[UPDATE: I've redacted this entry. Based on all reports, Tom Frazza was a good man and father who experienced a sudden, inexplicable slide into madness. My job here is to hold parents to account for their crimes; that mandate doesn't apply when someone may not be in full control of their actions. I apologize for any harm my words caused his friends and surviving family.]

People are pulling out the "he seemed like such a nice guy" routine for Thomas Frazza, a Washington Township, New Jersey man who no longer roams the Earth. Seems Frazza was stressed out by his failing business that he decided to cash in the chips. His perogative, I suppose. But, like all good cowards and bastards, Frazza wasn’t content just to take himself out of the game. Oh, no. His despair and bitterness ran so deep that he shot his sons, 20-year-old John and 14-year-old Kevin, before turning his weapon on himself. Because Goddess forbid you have to sell your home on the Jersey shore because of your debt. FAR better to kill your children in their sleep than live through THAT indignity.

Recently, I caused a stir on DadCentric when I maintained that people who commit suicide are selfish pricks. I stand by that contention. It’s perfectly possible to have compassion for someone who’s suffering to the point of self-immolation, but revile them for saddling their survivors with so much pain and grief.

At the time, I maintained that the only thing worse than offing yourself was taking your family with you. Now, I’m sorry I ever uttered such foolish words. Brit John Hogan is currently hospitalized in Greece after jumping from a hotel balcony with his 6-year-old son and 2-year-old daughter. His son died. The daughter survived. Sadly, so did Hogan, who claimed he was drunk and didn’t know what he was doing. (Apparently, drunkenness is the catch-all excuse for everything from killing your kids to hating the Jews.)

The reaction in Greece has been…well, let’s say, unforgiving. A crowd of people apparently surrounded Hogan stretcher after the jump to heap abuse on him. And the director of University General Hospital, Panayotis Spatharakis, was quoted as saying: "I feel that once he recovers and understands what he has done he should commit suicide." yeah…They’re hard-core in Greece like that. They’ll gladly fix you up…then leave you alone with a length of bedsheet so you can get it right the second time.

"Okay, guys, I’ve left the engine on so you can get the A/C and listen to the radio while daddy’s out. You’ve got snacks and water on the floorboard, so you should be fine. If ya gotta piss or shit, just walk over to Como Elementary School there and do it on the playground, in the bushes behind the monkey bars there – they won’t mind. It looks like the kids in that house over there like to watch Nickelodeon, so just go peer through the window if you get bored. Now you three be on your best behavior while daddy collapses for two days at this flophouse and gets smacked off his ass, okay? That’s my little angels!"

Needless to say, 32-year-old Jibrib Ali probably won’t get to see his kids (whose kids range in age from 8 to 12) anytime soon. Judging from this story, his kids won’t be missing much.

News flash: Parents are stupid! And they’re liars! At least, according to a new report from Columbia University, they suffer from delusions of innocence when it comes to their kids and they parties they attend. The study claims that 80% of all parents believe their kids attends dry parties – while 50% of the teens say that their parties are awash in booze and reefer. Even more disturbing: 99% of parents claim they would never alllow alcohol at parties they supervise. But 28% of their kids called "liar liar pants on fire" on that one, saying they’ve had drink and drugs under a parent’s so-called "supervision".

Certainly, I’m in zero position to push a "Just Say No" policy. But this isn’t about "tolerance" for occasional drinking or drug use – it’s about being blind. This is how kids becoome addicted to drugs and alcohol: because their parents insist that their little Johnny "would never do such a thing". They usually don’t wise up until little Johnny’s wrapped the family Miata around a telephone poll, and tested for a 0.15 BAC.

It’s not like "ordinary people" – i.e., people without $70 million in disposable income – don’t ever have unplanned pregnancies. Somehow, though, it seems much more trashy when it’s Britney Spears. The baby was hit one more time by Kevin Federline’s sperm (ew ew need hot shower now ew) in an "oops" insemination. Little Sean Preston Federline Spears is a mere 11 months old, a small-enough gap to bring the Internet to burst into a rousing chorus of "Every Sperm is Sacred".

If you’re wondering where the "bad parenting" is here, I have only three words for you:

Kevin. Federline’s. Sperm.

Okay, that does it – I need someone to hose me down with a power washer now. 

Last night on The Zero Boss, I commented that the world would probably need to apologize to JonBenet Ramsey’s parents, but that Hallmark probably didn’t make a "Sorry We Accused You of Murdering Your Child" card. Well, that may have been a bit premature. The evidence is clear" John Mark Karr is a sick sonofabitch. He deserves to be locked up for an eternity plus life – sooner rather than later, as Beth says.

But so far, the evidence appears split. Yeah, John Mark Karr has confessed. But he had an obsession with the case – an obsession that could have led him to the possession of "non-public" details. If his ex-wife’s claim that he was in Alabama at the time of the murder proves true, the book on this case will remain open,

In other words, keep your mea culpas close to your sleeves, folks.

For the record, I’m not convinced a family member did it. Hell, it could’ve been this guy, for all I know. I’m pretty sure Patsy Ramsey had nothing to do with it. Still, her penchant for tarting her girl up for those beauty pageant horror shows buys the woman (Goddess bless her soul) admission to the Parents Behaving Badly Hall of Shame.

45 sets of parents in Auckland, New Zealand got schooled recently when the prestigious Auckland Grammar School evicted their brats lovely young darlings. Seems that their morally upstanding mothers and fathers lied like snakes to get their kids admitted. News reports didn’t specify what the parents falsified in order to obtain admission, but the obvious scenario is grade manipulation.

As someone who’s largely self-taught, I shake my head every time I see a story like this. Who gives two shits where you went to school? Besides which, I can’t imagine any kid gets pumped up about attending "The Auckland Grammar School". Might as well re-name it "The Auckland Pocket Protector Academy". Now, re-christen it "The Auckland School for Horny Wayward Catholic Girls", and it’s a whole ‘nuther ballgame.

As for the parents…sigh. I’m no Christian, but it seems that Jesus said something about gaining the whole world but losing your soul that’s particularly apt here. 

No, Joe Simpson is not Homer’s brother. (Though from an angle, the resemblance is eerie.) He’s the father/manager of Jessica Simpson and…uh…the less-talented Simpson chick. And, from all reports, he’s something of a prick. Ex-son-in-law Nick Lachey certainly has no love lost for Blondie, who by some reports tracked the male singing star from bar to bar in the months prior to Lachey’s divorce from Simpson. The Simpson camp has "rubbished" these claims (Lord, but I love a good British-ism). True or not, however, Lachey has made his own feelings clear: He’d rather take his chances with The Prince of Darkness than be stuck on a desert island with Joe.

Apparently, Lachey isn’t the only one. Scuttlebutt has it that the Simpson daughters themselves are fed up with their dad’s "controlling" behavior…not to mention the way he’s always taking about their boobs. Eeeewww! Daaaad! In what may be the final evidence of Joe Simpson’s un-fitness for fatherhood, however, the article also notes that Jessica Simpson is weighing whether or not to play the Melanie Griffith role in a remake of Working Girl. Jesus Christ, Joe, did you raise these tarts with any sense of morality?!

Here’s hoping someone ultimately writes a tell-all book spilling the beans about this family’s dark secrets. Something tells me there are cemetaries upon cemetaries stacked up in Daddy Simpson’s closet.

It’s a known fact that members of the human species often need the obvious explained to them. Repeatedly. On occasion, with the assistance of a hammer. Well, Pam Spaulding of Pandagon has a hammer, and she’s not afraid to use it.

Spaulding’s target: conservatives who contend that gay and lesbian couples are unfit to raise children – or, at least, not as fit as their hetero brethren. Bullshit, says Spaulding, who offers up two recent and ugly examples of het parenting gone wrong: a mom who pimped her daughter out to her boyfriend, and a man who upped the ante by striking a similar "deal" for his own 12-year-old daughter’s virginity. Disgusting as these cases are, they’re no strange site to readers of PBB, which serves as a testament to the horrors produced by people who believe "parenting" is nothing more than inserting Tab A into Slot B.

Jefferson County is proud of itself. The Kentucky county has gone ahead and published the names of all of mothers and fathers who owe past child support to the state their children. (Oops, sorry – a little libertarian-esque cynicism almost snuck its way in there.) It’s a yearly ritual that nets about $1 million in past payments.

The full list of delinquents is available online (PDF). The biggest offender: Troy S. King of 8307 Palatka Rd., who owes a mind-boggling $53,833.68. Day-yumn. I’ve been in debt before (he says unconvincingly in the past tense), so there may be a few too many glass walls around me to go chucking stones, but…DAY-YUMN. If there’s one debt you never want to fall behind on – one debt you have a clear, overriding moral obligation to pay, the one debt that could leave you sharing a room with a guy who thinks your ass looks mighty cute in a pair of Levi’s – it’s this one. Dude, there’s "being behind", and then there’s "owing the equivalent of an IT worker’s yearly salary".

Best of luck to Mr. King and the others in crawling out of the hole they’ve dug beneath their own feet.

Yes, Parents Behaving Badly is back! We’re going to need some time to straighten up around here, tinker with our template, and get back up to speed on posting. (Not to mention jack in some ads. What, you think all this snark pays for itself?!) But it’s good to be in the driver’s seat once more. Stay tuned for your daily dose of tales of truly awful parenting.