Tony Ponce (aka megaStryke) is a culturally confused, Canadian-born Puerto Rican who grew up in Japan and South Florida ... yet can only speak English. He specializes in writing features and maintaining an immaculate goatee. Likes: Any and all things related to Mega Man, Contra, Castlevania, 2D, PB&J sandwiches, applesauce, and candy corn.
Meet the rest of the team
| BBcode help |
| [b]Bold text[/b] |
Bold text |
| [i]Italic text[/i] |
Italic text |
| [url]http://www.dtoid.com/[/url] |
http://www.dtoid.com |
| [url=http://www.dtoid.com/]Web link[/url] |
Web link |
|
| [img]http://www.example.com/robot.jpg[/img] |
 |
Post a comment! You can also post a photo below:
Comment with Facebook
Click connect and comment instantly!
|
Comment with Dtoid
New? SIGN UP - it takes 5 seconds
|
236 comments | showing # 1 to 50
|
Comment with Facebook
Click connect and comment instantly!
|
Comment with Dtoid
New? SIGN UP - it takes 5 seconds
|
Comments policy
Destructoid is an open discussion community. You don't need to "audition" to post a comment - just speak your mind. We respect differing opinions on the site, so have at it. Be smart, funny, insightful, clueless, or cute -- but back it up with substance. Keep your cool, keep it fun. We only ask that you act respectfully and above all: don't be a troll and ruin it for everyone else. Don't bring down gamers or we'll, you know, gently shoot you in the face and stuff you into a flaming mailbox. Each comment is your opportuntity to make this community awesomer. Is that even a word?
Avoiding the banhammer only requires common sense: spamming, trolling, racism, NSFW stuff, and other forms of sucking will not be tolerated. If anyone is griefing please report abuse. Be good. Don't suck!
Contest:
11:59 PM on 02.10.2012 | 
Podtoid 188: The Cat Pimp of Baltimore
:D
...
I hope that guy is real.
Nothing but punishing unruly teenagers by taking away their toys via high powered weaponry but only after a public excoriation or their egos...as a side-show for a social forum most likely to be enjoyed by teenagers in between bouts of complaining about their primary care providers to complete strangers and hangers-on who have never done anything for them in their entire lives(for however a short time that has been).
He seems like good people, actually. I tried to add him on Facebook but his friends list is full.
BULL-FREAKING-HORSESHIT!
This dad is awesome and completely in the right. If he's being totally honest and all that girl had to do was just that, and that he actually was spending his day and money upgrading her laptop only to find that on her Facebook then more power to him.
Coming from someone who's been spoiled as heck his entire life, I'm glad for what the father did. I don't like to admit it, but about half the reason why I'm 21, a high-school dropout (got my GED though) and only JUST NOW am starting is because of my mom and her hardly punishing me. Other half being me, of course.
Kids need discipline and respect for their parents especially. Good on this guy. Wish I had someone to kick me in the ass several years ago when I needed it.
Wow, no wonder the world is so fucked up.
Exactly my thoughts.
It's because we no longer HAVE father's like this that the world is as fucked as it is now.
I don't think something being "typical" is a great reason for kids to get away with shit though.
Not to mention he obviously went on her facebook on purpose while upgrading her computer. I understand the curiosity, but that's a basic breach of privacy that would be outright illegal outside of these circumstances. EVERY teenager bitches about their parents at some point, sure if they're going to do it to your face kick their ass, but you should have the courtesy of not doing what amounts to eavesdropping.
I honestly don't get the support for the dad, does everyone just have a regressed hatred for teenage girls or something? I feel like both parties are in the wrong here.
And you'd be wrong in your assumptions. In light of this fact, you may wish to re-think your conclusion.
@Meryc
Who said anyone should get away with it? This is what is known as a false dilemma, a common logical fallacy.
^this
@Pennywise
If you give them an inch, they take a mile. An alternate scenario might be: leave pissy teenager to their wiles, said teenager becomes an even bigger spoiled brat without any morals or values, and then said teenager grows up to be a crappy member of society.
Pissy teenager or not, the things she said were quite slanderous, and thus illegal.
It really sucks that society tries to find fault with a man disciplining his ugly children with a lesson in humility. But I guess that's what you get when you strip parents of their power by telling their kids that spanking is child abuse, and giving the the idea that they're so special and that deserve everything. Fucking kids these days.
What this country needs is a mandatory Agoge.
Um, we already pointed out the whole "false dilemma" thing you're basing your comment on.
Second, I hope you don't have any intentions of being a lawyer, because...you don't appear to know much about law. There was nothing illegal about what the daughter did, just pissy.
Another one touting out the dead on arrival false dilemma argument.
Seriously, did they stop teaching logic in highschool after I graduated?
"What is the American version of knighting someone?"
Crucifixion, from what I've seen.
Making exaggerated complaints about someone in a private conversation does not legally count as slander (if she had outright lied about something like sexual abuse, that would be getting closer). Try again.
@ShotgunDiplom4t
I really don't see how finding physical abuse abhorrent is the same thing as spoiling your children. There are plenty of ways to train behaviour that don't involve hitting, and there are plenty of children who get hit that turn into shitty people. I don't find fault with the man disciplining
his child, just with how he came to find the problem and how he chose to resolve it.
@Rammstein
If he is such a great father how did his daughters behaviour come to this point, where he feels the need to publicly fire live ammo into a laptop and ban her from all electronics until she leaves home? Self entitlement is a major problem in teens, but it only comes from training their expectations with how you raise them. Turning on them in such an overblown way for expecting everything when you have always given them everything is totally moronic.
Come at me bro.
-Facebook is the modern "hangout group". She shared this with her friends, and not with her parents, for a reason. This was her privacy that he invaded. Teenagers may be whiny, but they deserve privacy too.
-Every teenager is this whiny and bitchy. We all were too. Guess what? We grew out of it. Shooting a laptop will not fix the "teenager" in his kid.
-If he reacts this violently and to this extreme every time she acts like a teenager, no wonder she hates her parents. He definitely doesn't seem like the understanding type.
-Shooting a laptop, taking away "Facebook", and grounding her until college will do absolutely nothing but encourage rebellious behavior in his daughter. She will still find a way to get on Facebook, and she will be even more angry at her parents than she already was. If I were her (Hormonal, young, naive), I would probably try to run away after that kind of public humiliation, and the subsequent total lockdown in the household.
-If this video was shown to Child Protective services, she could potentially be put in a foster home on grounds of severe emotional abuse. He invades the privacy of his child for no reason other than "he could" He over-reacts in a violent manner to something he was never supposed to see. He then publicly humiliates her on the internet for what was supposed to be part of her private life.
Let's do a little role switch: Say her BOYFRIEND did everything that the father did. Everyone would be up in arms trying to get her out of that relationship. Just because he's her father doesn't exempt him from this being an abusive relationship.
Yeah, the girl's clearly being a bitch and over-reacting over what her parents are making her do. So what? Every teen over-reacts. Every teen gets emotional and rants every once in a while. Shooting a laptop and locking her in her room is doing nothing except further encouraging rebellion and conflict. Rather than be an adult, the father acts JUST like she did...Over-reacts and does something stupid.
Some father of the year.
In her letter, she portrayed him as a lazy, overbearing father with control issues (correct me if I'm wrong about that). Unless the father is lying, doesn't that fall under defamation?
Oh, and I guess I should have used "libelous" instead of "slanderous" since it was in a written form.
And yes, logic isn't a core subject anymore because of testing standards. I didn't learn it until college a couple years ago. It's a shame really.
Raising children is not as easy as you think. I don't have kids of my own but I have many friends/family who do and I always wondered why they didn't teach their kids better than they did and at some point you realize that your rearing can only do so much up until you release them into the world.
As a parent, you are-in essence-competing with television, peers, peer-pressure, society(as fucked up as it is), the internet, videogames, etc. You just have to hope you raised them right enough for them to understand what being humble means. I wish my dad was like this hero.
@Ramm: That last paragraph in your last comment before mine is beyond true. Minus the personal stuff (for me, ya know). Not only do we compete with that shit, but we also have to compete with all the shitty patents who don't give a fuck. There are so many it makes me sick. Plus we also have to check ourselves and like I said before, lead by example. If that was my daughter all her shit would be gone and she would learn what real work is, real quick. I just wouldn't destroy her shit. I'm not wasteful nor vengeful enough. Plus my neighbors get scared when I have my guns out.
"you feel that the daughter couldn't have possibly done anything wrong or acted self-entitled enough to warrant some kind of reaction from a father who is trying to raise a child with some sense of humility."
I'm not really sure how you came to that conclusion. I said in my first post I thought they were BOTH in the wrong. While I don't think he should have found the letter by invading her privacy in the first place (everyone should have a place to vent and cool off, whether they're being fair or not), upon doing so an angry reaction is understandable but the punishment he chose is still overblown in my books.
I realise that raising kids well is not easy and that I'm being somewhat idealistic, but I do strongly believe there is at least a happy medium between what you and I consider makes a hero. There just has to be a less damaging way of teaching humility.
Agree to disagree I guess. I'll probably end up having my own kids and finding out how wrong/right I am anyway.
(hopefully this image works)
I completely agree about how society has created self-entitlement and the whole 'no child left behind' movement. We now award EVERYONE a trophy just for competing and we can't call anyone a loser anymore, but rather first runner-up(etc.) because we don't want to hurt anyone's feelings. We're teaching kids from a young age that you can actually sue for hurt feelings when they reach adulthood.
*flips over a table*
First let's look at the issue. What did the kid do wrong? Vented about her parents, in private, to her friends. Nothing worse than anyone in this thread has ever done, I imagine. She just happened to use Facebook to do it, which her IT professional father was able to find by digging around on it.
Father's solution? Publicly vent his own frustrations with his daughter to the world, which his more than bit childish and hypocritical on his part.
In doing so he humiliates his daughter to her friends, her friends' parents, and the entire rest of the world. Seems more like attention seeking than parenting to me. He should realize this video isn't going anywhere now that it's on the internet. It's there for the world to see until at least the end of civilization as we know it.
Destroying the laptop is fairly heavy handed considering the crime in question here. Now, depending on how important the laptop is to the kid, outright destroying it, and in such a dramatic fashion at that, could lead to some lifelong resentment right there, especially if she actually believes the stuff she was venting in the first place.
The big thing here is the spectacle and public humiliation. For fuck's sake, that could really fuck up this family. Chances are pretty damned good that the "dad of the year" crowd here were never so publicly humiliated like that when they were 15. Hell, when I was that age my dad would have had to have bought air time on a major television network to get that kind of public humiliation going because we didn't have YouTube or anything like it. We didn't have the World Wide Web, we had CompuServ.
Again, for those who don't understand basic logic, this is not the same as saying he shouldn't take any action at all. I'm saying the actions taken aren't productive in dealing with the problem. They just create more problems!
The kid vents about her parents, teenagers do that. It's like breathing for them! What should a parent concerned about their kid's development do when they encounter this? They gotta make their kid understand that 1) They don't have things all that bad and 2) their parents aren't just abusing them as free labor, they're trying to prepare them for the world at large.
Take the laptop and internet access away, sure! That's the stick! Make the kid earn it back, over months or even a year or so, and make sure they damn well know that they need to build up some trust when it comes to letting them use the internet. Ground them. Give them more chores (have her take on some of the "Cleaning Lady's" work). Make damn well sure they get a job. After a given amount of time, if the kid shows some maturity and that they've learned from the experience, reward that by giving the laptop back. (That's the carrot!)
That's called "parenting", kids. It's not as easy as shooting a laptop in front of millions of people, but it gets the job done a helluva lot better.
As if simply having kids makes you an expert parent, entirely on par with all other parents in the history of parenting, so if anyone disagrees it can only mean that they are not a parent themselves. Or maybe they're just not a "true" parent.
Also, can we all just agree that this has been the most controversial "Daily Hotness" in forever? :)
Also the video would have been a bit boring if I hadn't have ended with some gun violence, although I agree with PhilK3nS3bb3n donating it would have been better. Probably less of a cathartic joy for the dad though.