Did That Internet Father Who Spanked His Daughters Go Too Far?

Before you get started reading, take a look at the video below.

The video features a woman who calls herself “Carmel Kitten.” She’s developed something of an internet following among urban men because of the way she performs a mostly-urban club dance called “The Twerk.” As you might have guessed, “Twerking” encompasses a woman suggestively moving her backside in a manner that mimics sexual gyrations. Apparently, this dance trend (and those women who perform it with the most sexually suggestive movements) has developed a cult-like following among urban youth and young adults. The above video featuring “Carmel Kitten” demonstrates how, and to what lengths some women will go to debase themselves in an effort to gain a sense of notoriety and recognition performing this dance (I guess it never occurred to her while she was in the library to pick up a book as she was demonstrating how tactless and classless she was showing herself to be).
Also—as you might have guessed—many of those who either like this particular dance or routinely objectify (i.e., sexually) the women who perform it see nothing wrong with doing either. However, there are some parents who find the dance so sexually suggestive and self-debasing that they are willing to do whatever it takes to instill in their children how unacceptable it is. Enter, Greg Horn of Dayton, Ohio. The 35-year-old father of two teenage girls rose to semi-notoriety—or rather infamy in some circles—this week when a video of surfaced online of his reaction to his daughters posting a video of themselves twerking on their Facebook pages. The video has since gone viral, and has been seen by more than 2 million people (LiveLeak.com). According to reports, Horn had instructed his 12 and 14-year old daughters to line up in against a wall (not shown) and began to whip them with a piece of a cable television cord. For some, the video of the father’s choice in disciplining his daughters for their actions elicited calls for his head on a platter for his act of brutality ("UPDATE: Ohio Dad Seen Whipping Daughters in Viral Video is Arrested").  Other applauded the father’s actions. The video is posted below (WARNING: Some might find this video disturbing).

In the video, the teenage girls were heard pleading with their father, crying and apologizing to her father, “I’m sorry daddy!” The video was apparently taped by the mother of the teenage girls. Their mother alerted the local police to the incident, and to the existence of the video. Horn was subsequently arrested, and has been charged with child endangerment and corporal punishment, authorities said on Thursday
Granted, the father got a little carried away, the daughters were way out of line too. And with all due respect to those who don’t agree with spanking as an accepted disciplinary measure for unruly children, it’s a sure bet that the father of these two young girls was thinking his daughters might be perceived as being the next “Carmel Kitten” when he opted to whip them. More so, one would think that given the negative image and notorious reputation that black males have for being deadbeat dads and/or absent fathers that his obligation to discipline his children as he saw fit would be applauded by more individuals.
The truth of the matter is that spanking is perceived far different and with more acceptance within the black community than among other ethnic communities in America, so there is clearly a cultural element at work here when a father chooses to discipline his children in such a manner. Statistics bear this out; 85% of black men “endorse spanking” (“Attitudes Toward Spanking”). Being an African-American male myself, this is a reality that I can attest to. In fact, as a Generation-Xer, most everyone I knew received spankings/whippings for bad behavior; “beatings” were reserved for the most egregious of behavioral transgressions. The same holds true for many, if not most Baby Boomers before us. These groups include most of the people who run this country—legislators at the state and federal levels, judges, Fortune 500 CEOs, and a host of other policy makers. What’s more, many adults (around my age or older) who were spanked as children often defend the practice. Many will tell you that they suffered no long-term negative effects, and agree that in many cases, spanking was needed.  For the most part, very few instances of what we endured as a generation could be construed as “abuse” (ignoring the fact that in today’s often unforgivably soft social climate, nearly anything constitutes “abuse” to a child).
Most of us adults come from a generation of kids who received direct parenting, and were spanked when it was needed (and yes, for some of it it was needed).  We were seldomly ever "abused" (I say this lightly because of what constitutes "abuse" today by those irresponsibly dedicated to a child's welfare). What's interesting is that kids today, who are part of the "time out" generation, seem the most undisciplined and most disrespectful. There are more apt to engage in actions and behaviors that those of us from previous generations wouldn't even dream of.

Last week's decision from a Washington state court to go ahead with the trial of a two 5th graders charged with the planned rape and murder of a female classmate is a testament to this generational difference ("2 Washington 5th Graders to Stand Trial for Rape and Murder Conspiracy") There is nothing wrong or "harmful" with a good swat on the butt to let a child know who is in charge.
In fact, and at the risk of sounding anecdotal, during my years as a youth counselor, case manager, and teacher, I have seen dozens upon dozens of bad parents—more than I thought were around—who were and are a lot more effective in hurting, abusing and scarring their children emotionally and psychologically than parents who engaged in whipping them (and yes, the overwhelming majority of my cases were those who didn’t spank/whip their children). Spanking, as a supplemental tool under the proper parenting structure shows a child concern by parents…far more than the neglect that I saw witnessed firsthand from parents who not only didn’t spank their children, but engaged in patterns of neglect and emotional abuse that leaves them needing a therapeutic solution to their resulting stunted emotional development than spanking.
My point is that spanking, used in conjunction with direct parenting (that includes talking, listening, showing concern, and being attentive) is just as much—if not more—effective a tool in effective parenting as most of the pseudo-emotional “tools” that New Age overly-liberal child-rearing “experts.” What’s more, used early with direct parenting that includes concern for the child’s welfare, spanking will usually become less needed as a child grows under the proper supervision and concern by a parent. I know this because most of the issues that I dealt with regarding “abuse” were related to emotional abuse, sexual abuse, or just growing up in an environment where the parents were apathetic to the fact that their children had needs beyond simply food, clothing, and shelter. In all my years working with children, I only had a single case where a child experienced physical abuse related to whippings. The opposition I find to cases like the Dayton father all seem to be based on emotional rather rational foundations.
To a reasoned thinker, a rational transaction is that the 30 (or more) seconds an openly disobedient child experiences at the business-end of a hickory switch or belt by a concerned parent is a small price to pay to avoid the far longer-lasting and crippling of their self-esteem and egos caused by debasing themselves as the next “Carmel Kitten” or internet "Jackass" wannabe.  Most parents who spank their children do so with the foresight of staving off the potential damage to their children of their life prospects by becoming prosecuted criminals who failed to receive reinforcement of the difference between right, wrong, and knowing their roles as children, not adults.
To those who think is an exaggerated statement, I offer up the following news item from yesterday’s airing from ABC’s “Good Morning America: Weekend Edition.” It showcases the recent arrest of teenagers who carjacked and kidnapped an 86-year-old woman who was simply trying to help them, locking her in the trunk of her own car as they rode around for 2 days.  It provides an illustration of how badly young people without direct parenting—and maybe the benefit of occasional spankings—can damage their lives (and others) more than the “abuse” of whippings.

Parents concerned about ensuring that their children grow up to make the right decisions should ask themselves whether or not it is worth the short-term pain a child might feel from a spanking is worth the pain of visiting them in prison or in a cemetery plot.  Do we limit our parenting to just "talking" in the hopes that children might understand the verbally-communicated consequences of their actions, or are we up to using whatever it takes to ensure that our children aspire to be the next internet-based, attention-seeking media whore that others will not respect because of the image they chose to project?
It is not society's place to tell another parent how to discipline their children. The fact that there are still parents in America willing to impose a little hurting on their children in order to save them from a great deal of hurt from consequences of unlearned lessons later in life—regardless of how those of us without the brass pair to do the same judge them—should be applauded and lauded, not condemned. For those who fail at least consider the larger picture, a spanking might be the difference between your own grandmother being locked in the trunk of her car or being killed on the spot by an unruly child without guidance.


See also: "To Spank Or Not To Spank? (Hell Yes!)"

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How A Little Imagination Goes A Long Way (Or, “When I Was Your Age…”)

So I’m in a counseling session with one of my young clients, and I’m listening to her talk about her interests. And true to form with today’s crop of teenagers, the word “boring”—the personal bane of my existence—inevitably worked its way into our discourse. And no, you didn’t misread…I fatalistically anticipated that my client would assert how easily bored she becomes when faced with the prospect of doing something either constructive or—heaven forbid—as an alternative to inactivity.
Having worked with teens in one form or fashion for the last 15 years, I have observed that for whatever reason, today’s parents have failed miserably when it comes to instilling in the current generation of youth a sense of Imagination. Some may argue that today’s youth have quite a bit of imagination. If so, I challenge anyone to take away any form of technology that become commonplace today America youth and see how imaginatively impotent the average child in becomes.
Just as in my counseling session, when my young client complained how “boring reading” a newspaper and “journaling” were as a means to spur thinking and to focus thoughts (respectively), many of today’s youth have an aversion to devoting time to self-improvement, exploring the realms and recesses of their very thoughts, or just engaging their imagination in simply playing; never mind more complex exercises in cognitive engagement such as abstract thinking.
Simply put, many parents—and adults in general—have become lazy custodians, unwilling to say “no” to the materialistic indulgences and desires of today’s youths. And many are too busy to engage in the responsibility of direct parenting (or guardianship if they are left in our charge). We are too quick to give kids some shiny heavily-coveted objects of desire just to shut up their incessant whining and complaining that “I am bored.”


And to be honest, I’ve never quite understood the word “boring.” And while I understand the psychological mechanics of the concept, I just can’t wrap my mind around the idea that in a country where, from birth we’ve been indoctrinated to consume-to-satisfy, today’s young people simply cannot “find” something to keep themselves entertained. From my personal perspective, it’s “bored” people who are “boring.” In fact, I would go so far as to declare that boredom is the result of an untrained, unsophisticated, and unintelligent mind that lacks the imagination to keep itself occupied (or entertained). And like many things that are wrong with today’s youth, we have overly-emotional liberals and conservative we-know-what’s-best parents to thank for uninspiring today’s young people with their half-assed child-rearing.
When I was young (there…I said it), many families didn’t have the resources to buy things in order to keep us otherwise mind-occupied. For that, we were reared to develop and rely on our imaginations. One of the institutions where we learned to use our imaginations was—believe it or not—in the public schools of yesteryear.
Schools didn’t teach for standardized testing; creative and talented teachers had the skills and the ability to instill in us the creative—as opposed to standardized—thinking (even if we as children failed to appreciate their talents at the time). They tended to be older, wiser, seasoned, and not young and inexperienced enough to be our older sisters (or brothers). In lieu of some formal lessons, they could regale us with tales from their youth, and inspire us to work around problems which presented themselves. They inspired us to cut, paste, draw, write and write repeatedly…and we were graded on penmanship (which inspired some of us to be the most creative in adopting the most unique and/or the neatest handwriting). They had the experience to frame lessons in such a way as to compel us to ask questions to supplement what they were already teaching us. They made us want to melt crayons and iron the shape of maple leaves onto paper in order to understand their structure. They made us want to cut paper in the shapes of snowflakes. And like the cavemen of earlier times (which we learned about), the tools we used to help us learn were simple; we had to use scissors, glue, rulers, abacuses and (gasp) books if wanted to know about the world around us. They were given the freedom to teach, and not handcuffed by policy to ensure our “rights” were observed; most seasoned teachers had an instinctual awareness of both theirs and our rights as students. We were not allowed to use calculators. We were taught how they counted and added in ancient times…whether we thought doing such was relevant or not.
Today’s teachers are every bit as quick to take unimaginative shortcuts to learning as the students they rob of imagination. They lack the age-life experience of those who taught my generation. As such, they lack the experience gained through a life of relative simplicity and technological deprivation which imparted into us the appreciation of—and the encouragement to develop—wit as the source of our abilities. This is to say that the lack of technological sophistication which both our generation and the generation represented by the older teachers who taught us put on something of a parity insomuch as our will and confidence to use our heads to meet challenges; a if-s/he-can-do-it, so-can-I attitude. Schools taught those of us within the “X” Generation (as well as the early part of Generation “Y”) not to rely on scripted and imagination-curtailing only-this-way type of thinking in order to find solutions to problems, but to use the lack of technology to develop and arrive at our own solutions. Nowadays, unless they are unusually interested in learning and expanding their mental faculties, youth are more likely to seek any and every shortcut toward the goal of learning. They right-click, cut, and paste in order to “complete” assignments in school. They walk up next to the nearest computer terminal and type in a term, eschewing the legwork and effort of actual research, and simply copy the entry…almost verbatim onto paper. In worse cases—those requiring absolutely nothing in the way of imagination, they appropriate papers from each other. They are encouraged to use calculators. They are too quick to come up with excuses for why learning isn't important…and teachers, often too young and too inexperienced in life, do not have the insight to tell they why doing so is important.
But the lack of imagination that kids today have starts in the home, and translates into many other aspects of their lives. As a child, my own imagination was the best remedy for boredom, inactivity, and —at least in limited ways—a means to address the lack of economic resources which painted my reality. Whereas today’s crop of youth are quick to complain about “nothing to do”—despite their X-boxes, computer tablets, and access to unlimited learning—I had no issue with passing my time walking to the local public library, just reading and learning about the world the old-fashioned way…actually seeking out knowledge instead of sitting on my butt at home on a computer, searching for irrelevant pop culture references. Whereas kids today are quick to become “bored” with all of their electronic gadgetry, I made my own toys; the “unusable” cardboard roll from paper towels, combined cut cardboard strips made a very realistic looking “X-Wing” Fighter a-la “Star Wars” to use with my action figures. And whereas today’s kids are always looking for someone to give them money (or things), out of a misplaced sense of entitlement rather than duty, I would team up with siblings, other relatives, or friends to go out to look for aluminum cans for recycling money, searching the city for abandoned cans and bottles to recover the deposits, or to secure a ride out to farming areas to work the farms for a little summer money. Others I knew had similar hustles, including paper routes, cutting lawns, raking leaves, and other colorful ways of making an honest buck. Having work with children for the last 15 years, I often find myself standing in silent disbelief at the lack of imagination, and by extension, the lack of creative thinking among today’s youth.
As a child, I routinely found myself in the company with peers who were just as imaginative as I. As kids, we would (for example) not just read fiction but use a combination of staplers, paper, creative folding, and actual penmanship to actually make our own “books” to share among each other. We could (and did) scavenge for bicycle parts from all over the city to build our own bikes; as you can imagine, we addressed “boredom,” not complained about it. And we would work together to secure ways to secure money…work together to find (or make) work.
The lack of something as small as imagination among today’s youth has resulted in a generation of lazy, uninspired, and cognitively unsophisticated future Americans. And the more we force them to focus on things, the less they will be capable of developing themselves and contribute to developing our country.

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America...The Lazy, Stupid, and Dumb!

Back in March of this year, I went to the movies to see a somewhat decent sci-fi flick, “Limitless.” Because the movie is now on DVD, I can give you a synopsis of the movie’s premise. In the movie, the protagonist, a down-and-out writer and otherwise chronic failure comes face-to-face with a failed drug salesman with criminal affiliations. The salesman gives the loser a pill which magnifies his mental faculties and sensory perceptions a thousand-fold, which turns his life around in a kind of “The Matrix” meets Charlie Brown scenario. Beyond that, you’ll just have to either rent or buy the DVD.
Fast forward to July of this year. In one of my rare days of leisure, I was watching the news when my interest began to focus on a story on NBC’s “The Today Show.” It featured a story about the abuse of the anti-attention deficit disorder prescription drug, Adderall by otherwise normal college students. Apparently, there is a growing trend among some these students, many of them attending top-tier colleges, of taking the drug in an effort to help stimulate concentration and spur the focus needed to successfully study all night.




Watch "The Today Show's" health segment on how college students abuse the drug, Adderall by clicking on the "watch" button.

According to one female student on the “Today Show” segment,

When I’m on Adderall and I’m looking at the textbook I can forget about everything else around me. I figured if everyone else is doing it, why shouldn’t I get the advantage?”

Another male student added, “It’s given me the boost to work non-stop for 10 hours a day…Baseball players take steroids to be the best and students take Adderall to be the best. It’s steroids for school.”
Experts say that Adderall is considered safe when taken as prescribed by a doctor, but can addictive to those using it in non-prescribed ways.
Labeled “the ‘smart pill’” by those using it on college campuses, those who peddle Adderall to those looking for the edge to maintain academic performance sell the pill for as much as $5 for a 25 milligram tablet. In the case of those traditionally cash-strapped students who can’t come up with money for the pill, they are given advice on how to obtain a legally-prescribed dose of the drug for their own use; fake symptoms and go to the nearest doctor.
As I watched the report, my mind started to make connections that this abuse has to other perspectives with regard to issues like affirmative action in higher education, how we rear our children, the quality of students public schools, our collective sense of ethics (or lack thereof), the over-medication of our children, and our collective lack of appreciation for hard work.
Whenever there is talk of race and higher education, preferential treatment for minorities in admission is usually in the forefront. However, the abuse of Adderall by college students at top-tier colleges reveals how irrelevant numbers and standardized test scores can be for some. Remember, these are “the best” according to the numbers. It’s also a reflection of a larger issue…that of those having resources and the ability to via access to manipulate the system in order advance while others are condemned to “follow the rules.”
The abuse of the drug is symptomatic of a serious epidemic of faltering ethics which could be traced directly to parenting. The concept of easy fixes and quick ways out have been lost and supplanted by a win-at-all-cost mentality. We see this in many aspects of contemporary child-rearing. Parents who push their children almost from the womb to excel promote win-win-win thinking by micro-managing many aspects of their children’ lives with the focus on results.
From entering their children in “child pageants” (the worst kind of exploitation) and signing them up for every extra-curricular activity (in the hopes of finding their possible sports “niche”), to hiring college entrance “coaches” who assist in prepackaging young people in an appealing way to as to increase their chances for college admissions (including test coaching) and/or mortgaging their homes to pay for their children’ education, many middle class parents seek to cement their children’s futures at the cost of the latters’ independence and the ability to self-earn their success. Many are impressed with the thinking that money, means and quick fixes are the keys to succeeding; hard work, grit, and intestinal fortitude are the provinces of the less-than-fortunate. The “everybody cheats/bends the rules” ethic in a society of perceived one-upsmanship has become the accepted mantra of those seeking advantage as a result (what about affirmative action for the rest of us without such resources to succeed?).
With instances such as the abuse of Adderall, how we raise (and strip our children of their sense of independence), and how such extreme measures are needed to succeed in college curriculums which are not even as challenging those in other countries, is it any wonder the rest of the world considers Americans to be "soft?"
The ease by which college students can and do abuse Adderall also reveals how quick we are as a society to seek solutions to even the most common and human of afflictions…diverted attention. This is due more to the lack of self-discipline and will that we have avoided instilling in our children, and not a proliferation of ADHD. Quite simply, we have over-medicated out children (and ourselves) where they have come to accept that pills are the answer to our shortcomings.

Americans need to back to the Old School approach to rearing children...an emphasis on hard work, structure, direct involvement in their children’ education, and an occasional visitation from a leather belt worked wonders to create responsible citizens and half-way decent leaders. Overly-liberal, new age ideas about non-punitive, be-your-child’s-friend child-rearing are ruining traditional (and I think proven) methods of parenting. Two-parent households (responsible parents), clearly-defined parent-child roles and expectations, and the aforementioned Old School approaches are the only things that will put our youth back on the path of an appreciation for self-earned, self-generated success.
While Tea Partiers complain about "how our children are going to pay for our current debt," our children are selling off something even more important...their souls and the future basis for what had made America successful in the past!

See Also: "Apr. 09 - A Nation of Whiners."
"May 09 - Faith, Drugs, & Children...Bad Parenting Made Easy."

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Its 2010...Do You Know What Your Kids Are Smoking?

In working with at-risk teens, I find that both that their parents as well as those of us working to save them have to be more than vigilant…we have to virtually sleep with one eye open. Today’s youth seem more inclined engage their free time by pursuing questionable “pleasures,” most notably the fixation on getting high.
In regards to this to teenage fixation on pursuing chemically-induced altered states of perceptions, the methods of choice include illegally-obtained prescription medicines, “huffing” chemical inhalants, and smoking marijuana—by no means an exhaustive list. But with many institutions increasing their emphasis on drug testing and [the] increasing legal restrictions limiting access to excessive amounts of over-the-counter medicines (often used to concoct mixtures to chase cheap highs), teenagers are constantly seeking and exploring other alternatives to momentarily escaping reality.
One of these alternatives are plants and other exotic herbs that have been treated with synthetic chemicals, so that when smoked mimic both the form and function of marijuana. The way this “legal weed” works is that when rolled in smoking paper and smoked, produces a euphoric high similar to that of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the chief psychoactive chemical in real marijuana. Instead of THC, this synthetic marijuana contains a mixture of synthetic chemicals known as JWH-018, JWH-073, and/or CP-47 that act on cannabinoid receptors in the brain in much the same way that true marijuana does.
This totally legal marijuana substitute (in most states) is manufactured abroad, shipped to the states, sold mostly in local convenience stores/corner markets, and marketed as “herbal incense” in order to disguise its true purpose as a way of obtaining a marijuana-like high…without the legal ramifications. Sold under the popular brand names such as “K2,” “Kush,” “Spice,” “Mr. Nice Guy,” and a host of others, these herbal blends have dangerous, potentially deadly heath issues attached to their use. Earlier this year, an Iowa teen who had smoked K2 died after suffering a panic attack caused by its use and shooting himself (http://www.siouxcityjournal.com/news/local/article_877e5512-aae0-58bc-b88b-8e3124f198dc.html).

As illustrated, smoking small amounts of the more potent synthetic marijuana can cause an increased heart rate, loss of consciousness, paranoia, hallucinations, and psychotic episodes. Regarding these health issues, the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) calls these herbal plants a “drug of concern” and has moved to have these drugs placed in the same category as traditional illegal drugs such as cocaine and heroin. Additionally, some 13 states as well as the military have banned either their sale and/or use (importation and/or use have also been banned abroad in the UK, Russia, Poland, France, and South Korea). However, in the jurisdictions that have been slow to respond—for whatever reasons—synthetic marijuana’s use continues to grow as young users take advantage of this legislative oversight (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/11/24/national/main7086373.shtml).
Besides the fact that legal loopholes help encourage access to this drug, the fact that it doesn’t show up as a positive reading in traditional drug screenings make it an even more attractive substitute for young people looking to get an easy and cheap high; small packets of these herbs cost between $15 to $40 dollars.
In cities and areas across the country, authorities should make themselves aware of this potentially deadly substitute for marijuana and move quickly to ban its import, sale, and use…or the federal government should speed up its efforts to ban the importation and/use of any product with these particular (or even similar) chemical makeup(s).
Given the level of talk and bragging I hear daily by teens who share stories about their particular experiences with artificial marijuana use, perhaps some enterprising future entrepreneur could create a drug screening which could detect this new drug, and make himself/herself a multimillionaire in the process…and help those of us who spend our time trying to keep young people keep their heads on straight.

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A Few Items In The News…

The Mid-Term Elections

Years ago, Adolf Hitler said that if you tell a big enough lie often enough, it will eventually become the truth…and that truth will eventually not matter. Keep that in mind as reality has declared the mid-term elections of 2010 to now be history. And after all of the usual pre-election insanity of campaign lies, slanders, half-truths, opponent misrepresentations, and shifty campaign contribution, we have projected winners and losers.
Now that America has a divided Congress—between the now Republican-controlled House of Representatives and the Democrat-controlled Senate—as well as a Democratically-controlled executive branch (i.e., that’s the White House to those of you who failed Civics 101), we can expect ideological intransigence, political gridlock, party-bashing, and ultimately legislative inaction to run Washington for the foreseeable future.
Even as the landslide-victorious Republicans are preparing to take control of half of the federal government’s legislature, the presumed new Speaker of the House, John Boehner (R-OH) had already started to engage in the usual Washington political hyperbole by declaring that “there seems to be some denial on the part of the president and other Democratic leaders of the message that was sent by the American people."





Last week’s election victories on the part of the Republicans (in both national and local races across the country) were not so much as bringing the Democrats face-to-face with some presumed denial on their parts as much as it was greater organizing among the conservative rank-and-file, a more effective public relations machine, and better image-projecting. Combine this reality with the fact that Democrats were ideologically split over support for policies promoted by the White House and you get the pasting that Democrats suffered at the polls almost 2 weeks ago.
Most informed Americans already know the conservative platform of the Republican Party, so to call this election “the most historic election in over 60, 70 years” is something of a stretch of reality, and reeks of political spin…trying to make more of the elections than they were (come on…the election of the first African American president and the accompanying one-party control of the federal government during the previous election cycle doesn’t count as more “historic?” Even the Republican shift of Congress in 1994 was more meaningful historically). More to the point, its not as if the American electorate has much of a choice when it comes to party/ideological representation in Washington anyway…Brand X or Brand Y.
Taken altogether, these events harbinger what is to come for the American people…the ultimate loser in the elections of the past couple of weeks. Until either one party effectively (the key word here) controls one aspect of the legislative process, decides to work in the interests of their constituencies—us—and not instead hold allegiance to their political parties and their respective ideologies, or until both parties either learn to work together or the American people opt to create a viable third political alternative (the Tea Party totally withstanding), we can expect the same a three-ring circus in Washington in the coming term instead of functioning three branches of government.

Corporal Punishment In Schools

A high school basketball coach in Jackson, Mississippi is in legal hot water after images of him “paddling” students during a basketball practice went viral over the ‘net this week, courtesy of another student’s cell phone camera.
Coach Marlon Dorsey defended his practice of paddling basketball team members who failed “to run basketball plays correctly" as a way of trying to "save these young men from the destruction of self," according to court documents filed recently.
In further defense of his actions, Dorsey issued a statement which read,

"I paddled my students... today, some of [sic] students have lost pride in their school and in their (sic) selves. Students are disrespecting teachers, administrators and other students by stealing cell phones, leaving off campus without permission, disrupting classroom teaching time, late for class and not following dress codes by wearing the pants on their butts and house shoes to school and on-court behavior. I took it upon myself to save these young men from the destruction of self and what society has accepted and become silent to the issues our students are facing on a daily basis."

As of this writing: Dorsey is still employed with the district, but is on active suspension without pay for 28 days; students who were alleged to have been paddled still attend classes and are still playing on the boy's varsity basketball team; and a lawsuit has been filed in court naming the school district, Dorsey, and the school principal as defendants who failed to safeguard the rights of the players (http://mw.cnn.com/snarticle?c=cnnd_us&p=0&aId=20101111:mississippi.coach.whippings:1).





Having worked with young people myself for over 10 years (including currently as a counselor for at-risk teens), I not only empathize with Dorsey’s position, but support it 110%. Today’s youth are simply out of control, especially urban youth. Part of this is because we as a society have adopted an overly liberal attitude toward dealing with both their issues and their actions. We have adopted a New Age form of thinking which asserts that paddling, whippings, and other forms of “abuse” are more harmful than helpful to youth in dealing with their delinquency. But an argument can be made that removing these (and other such) sanctions as options when it comes to bringing up our children does more harm to society as a whole.
Most of us who comprise Generation X, Baby Boomers, and prior generations received such sanctions regularly in both the home and in schools (from 3rd grade through high school), and we are no worse for our experiences. In fact, it could be argued that such actions reinforced our generation’s superior social value of duty, while the absence of such actions has resulted in this current generation’s sense of entitlement.
Even if you don’t agree with bringing back corporal punishment in public schools, one thing no one can disagree with is that there was no where near as much violence, disrespect for teachers, and lack of self-respect back in my public school days as there is today with the absence of such measures. Also, people were not chomping at the bit to sue for any perceived violation of one’s “rights” back in the day as they are now…as if awarding monetary “compensation” somehow miraculously gives one back his/her dignity.
In fact, who needs Corporal Punishment? I say bring in Sergeant Slaughter!


Black Unwed Motherhood Reaches A New High

This week, the Washington Post featured a story about the extremely high—an understatement to be sure—rate of unwed motherhood among black women in America. According the both the article and the latest government figures, black single motherhood among black women is an astounding 72%, far and away shadowing the demographic group, Native Americans at 66% (“Blacks Struggle With 72% Unwed Mothers Rate,” The Washington Post.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/06/AR2010110602362_pf.html ).

To emphasize the point, the article focused on the experience of a Houston-area OB-GYN and her low-income–serving practice. The government’s statistics closely mirrors the daily experiences of Dr. Natalie Carroll, who gives a level of personal counseling emphasizing the need for single mothers to bring stable male figures into the lives of their children…in addition to medical care she provides to expectant mothers.
For many within the black community, this fact is no surprise, although the numerical percentage is still shocking. The black community also knows all-too well the correlative outcomes that such a high rate of single-parent households tends to yield—children of unmarried mothers (of any race) “are more likely to perform poorly in school, go to prison, use drugs, be poor as adults, and have their own children out of wedlock.”
It’s a well-know but little-discussed norm within the black community that, even when is criticized for the sociological pathology that it is by high profile figures such as entertainer Bill Cosby on the left and former Republican presidential candidate Alan Keyes on the right, it becomes a matter of loping off the head (s) of the bearer(s) of bad news rather than an issue to be addressed.
It’s a complex problem with equally complicated solutions. Yes, black males could learn to step up and accept more responsibility insofar as family and their children are concerned, but when the economic climate creates more impediments than opportunities, how is he supposed to become “marriage material” if he cannot even acquire gainful employment? And what woman is going to “take care of a man” (a prospective taboo among many black women)?
And what about idea of marriage as a solution to this problem? Given the almost daily reports about how many high profile couples such as entertainers—individuals of more-than-adequate financial means—are splitting up almost as soon as they get together, how is any man supposed to take the institution of marriage seriously when it seems no one else is? As a solution to the high rate of single motherhood in and of itself, marriage seems to be an outdated institution that no one takes seriously. Indeed, depending on whose numbers you buy, more than half of them will end up in divorce anyway. So there is obviously no sense of security in matrimony. More so, if it comes down to divorce, the man is far more likely to receive the short end of the stick insofar as rulings (spousal/child support, the dividing of assets, etc.) are concerned, so where is his incentive to get married?
It would seem that many aspects of the socioeconomic system in America have to change in order for facilitate an incentive for black males become more responsible, and for black women to accept them as potential marriage partners. Then again, these were non-factors for black family cohesiveness during both slavery and in the century of Jim Crow following slavery. As mentioned earlier, it’s a complicated issue.

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Special Commentary--What Happened To Childhood? Part 1

I have something of a daily ritual which I all-but automatically perform in the small town here in Michigan where I reside. It consists of driving around to one of the newspaper boxes that pepper our small town to pick up a copy get a local daily paper. A simple enough activity, I habitually locate a box, jump out and drop a couple of quarters in the coin slot, pull out a single copy—sometimes scanning the front page for any news of particular note—and fetch the paper home for thorough reading through. Every so often during these daily treks, a particular news item will catch and hold my interests enough that find my eyes and mind focused on the item of note as I inch-by-inch my way back to the car. Recently, one of those news items held my attention enough that I didn’t even make it home to read the article, compelled instead to sit in my car and read the article played itself out recently as I went to fetch the paper.
On the front page, there was an article citing the sobering conclusions of a report released by the Michigan Department of Health (June 2008). According to the report, new HIV/AIDS diagnoses “among 13-to 24-year-olds almost doubled from 2002-2006, rising from 5.7 to 9.7 cases” per every 100,000 people. For a social crusader such as myself, these statistics were fairly alarming. I was forced to contemplate not just the immediate but the overall implications for everyone involved, especially children and young people. This appalling finding is just another in an ever-growing series of miseries that today’s youth find themselves forced to deal with. So as I sat in my car taking in the findings of the report, I began to make the inevitable comparisons to my own childhood. While kids nowadays have to deal with issues such as HIV/AIDS and increasing poverty within their ranks, at 13, the most I had to about was whether or not I had had the Chicken Pox before, or where to get the money to buy the next issue of my favorite comic book, the X-Men worry (this is not to say my formative years were a picnic…far from it)
Children nowadays face so many more complex problems that they seem to be literally pushed out of the birth canal and into the unforgiving arms of adulthood. As for the period in between—that important part where childhood once took place—it no longer seems to be relevant in a world where adults have just about driven it to the brink of extinction. And since the symbolic end of my own childhood back in 1985, the year I graduated high school, I’ve observed so many changes in the lives of American children that I find myself what has happened to childhood in America? I would think that the answer was rather obvious. Since its sure bet that—when it was around—children themselves never voted to eliminate the innocence of their own childhoods, that adults are responsible for the destruction of childhood in America.
Only as recently as the 20-something years since the end of my own childhood, adult-controlled pop culture still had the built-in measures which firmly reinforced childhood. For example, back then we had the weekly ritual of Saturday Morning Children’s Television, whereby we would sit glued to the family TV for hours at a time, with commercial breaks showcasing products geared toward us. And in between the many cartoons and occasional live-action programs we enjoyed, there were subconscious reminders that we were kids. There was the smooth, yet authoritative voice of the late Christopher Glen recapping the weeks’ major newsworthy events on the 60-second newsmagazine “In the News,” which reminded us that there was a world beyond the fiction of Saturday morning TV that grown-ups controlled. We also received supplemental lessons to the Three “R’s” we got in school in the form of the animated teachings of Schoolhouse Rock, which stressed that as kids we still had things to learn (and many of us Generation Xers can still recite most, if not all of the familiar tunes that carried these lessons). As an added bonus, sometimes, these children shows spilled over into the less exciting, but still cherished Sunday morning television. These programs entertained our young minds in ways that appealed to the kid in us.
Today, that particular childhood custom is gone. Now, as if the many 24-hour cable news channels weren’t enough, Saturday (and Sunday) morning television is nothing more than more adult-geared news…an addendum to the saturation of doom-n-gloom reporting of the week that tattles on adults to children of how painfully real a place the world is. In most television markets, the weekend network news is just a chaser; today’s children are given a snoot full of local news before the shot of network news programming. And then there are the various syndicated specialty programs that deal with adult-world issues such as finances, sports, community forums, even hunting and fishing have their own have time slots that were once occupied by children programming. Furthermore, back in the day during weekday mornings and afternoons, there were also animated programs that had moral and/or object lessons embedded within or at the end of the shows; He-Man, G.I. Joe, and the Super Friends come to mind, despite the conflicts that evolved during the storylines. Now, such responsible programming has been replaced with a torrent of shows centering on adult conflict (e.g., Divorce Court, Judges Brown/Hatchett/Judy/Christina/Mathis/Whoever), meaningless gossip (“Entertainment [using the term loosely] Tonight”), or—you guessed it—more news. And let us not forget the king of “instructional” television, The Jerry Springer Show, that catering-to-the-lowest-denominator masterpiece which instructs children that the best way to solve any “adult” dispute is through sponsor-loving, ratings-inflating foul language and physical confrontation…the final 30 seconds he dedicates to rational thought notwithstanding.
Now, if I were reading this rant rather than writing it, I would probably be thinking along the same lines as you are probably at this moment: “It’s just harmless television.” “It’s a matter of personal responsibility.” Etc. However, having been a full time substitute teacher in our public schools for a couple of years, I witnessed firsthand the effects of such “harmless” television has on impressionable children. On more than one occasion during a lull in classroom work, some of my middle school students would begin making use of their unexpected free time by shouting, “Let’s play ‘Jerry Springer’…you be the cheating boyfriend!” On yet another occasion, a group of female students in the same general age group wanted to “play” The Flavor of Love; they would pretend to argue and fight over one of the boys in the class, who would portray ex-rapper slash faux celebrity Flavor Flav...was thus resolving in an “adult” manner which woman would get her man.
We adults have only ourselves to blame for this distorted view that children have of what it means to be an adult. Because of our changing definition of what constitutes “entertainment,” along with our warped desire for notoriety, is it any surprise that today’s youth can’t appreciate the seriousness of their graver actions, such as the mass shootings at Columbine…actions that were once carried out exclusively by some adult social deviant in an otherwise sane society? We televise no-holds-barred tough men contests, people devouring live (and repulsive-looking) insects for the chance at a million dollars, and the latest celebrity sex-tape (which always seem to manage to somehow find it way into the waiting hands of media outlets) and wonder why teenagers post criminal assaults on You Tube, risk their lives engaging in stunts of horseplay (also sometimes posted on the ‘Tube), and engage in alarming amounts of casual sex that results in further televising of the answer to the question, Who’s My Baby’s Daddy?” Furthermore, the sometimes sanctimonious ideologies of some adults don’t help spur childhood interest in what few remaining children’s programming that remains; whether its criticism of Harry Potter’s “promotion” of witchcraft, or of a purse-toting “gay” Teletubbie looking to convert children over to the “Homosexual Agenda.”


To Be Continued...

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