Well, this, in turn, annoyed Mr. Jordan. After all, he’d spent some time and treasure fixing his child’s laptop.
Huh. Sounds like a pretty typical parent-teen conflict so far.
Teen: My parents don’t understand/appreciate me!!
Parent: Back in MY day, we didn’t even HAVE ... [fill in blank as appropriate for whatever decade ... Pony Express ... telegrams ... laptops... ]
But Mr. Jordan decided to take his annoyance with his daughter’s “public” (inasmuch as Facebook is public) rant by, well, going public himself. With a video. On Facebook.
He recorded a video of himself reading her post and rebutting her various claims.
He was, he said, planning to post this video on her Facebook page. Not that she’d ever see it, since he was planning to get rid of her laptop.
At which point, in the video, he pulled out his .45 and plugged the laptop with all available rounds.
(Confession: The shooting of the laptop did make me laugh. I’ve yet to own a laptop I didn’t, at some point, feel like shooting.)
Anyway, the video went viral. Debate, commentary and questions ensued on all sorts of media outlets: Was he a clever parent? Or unkind?
Here are my questions: Were his motives to truly parent?
Or was this a well-planned, and successful, attempt to create a video-gone-viral for whatever reason? It’s hard to say, although you might get some clues from his personal Facebook page ... which currently has public settings, so anyone can see it. And post comments.
Which thousands of people have done. Which, he says in one of his own comments, has made it really difficult to get on Facebook for his usual purposes ... such as promoting his book. And his business. And his wife’s business ...
Hmm. I really don’t know if Mr. Jordan was a seeker of publicity or a frustrated parent taken by surprise that his snuff-the-laptop video went viral.
But I’m still left with what I see as the most important question of all: Whatever happened to simply talking with one’s children? Privately? Resolving family issues within the confines of, well, family?
Is it really that difficult to say, as a parent, “Hey, kiddo, posting this is embarrassing — to you. Delete the post. If you just want to rant about us as crappy parents to your friends, fine.
But do it privately, either, you know, by talking with them. Or in a private message
Oh, and by the way, if you really have an issue with the chores we’ve assigned, you need to actually talk with us. Present some facts, some alternatives. We’ll listen.”
And, of course, if one thinks one’s kid doesn’t have the maturity to have his/her own laptop, one could add: “And, by the way, we’ve decided you’re not mature enough yet to have your own laptop. So we’re taking it away. We thought about shooting it and making a video of that, but decided instead to donate it to a school or program where underprivileged kids could really benefit from a nice laptop.”
OK, so thinking that the above speech would result in warm, fuzzy understanding and dialog might be a bit optimistic.
But this much I definitely do know about parenting.
Kids learn far more from the examples parents set than by anything they say. Or shoot. Whether with a gun or camera or both.
And they learn the most when we least think they’re paying attention to our actions.
It might not make for great marketing, but as unglamorous as privately parenting one’s kids might be, in the long run it’s a better example than creating public spectacle.
Sharon Short’s column runs Monday in Life. Send e-mail to sharonshort@sharonshort.com.
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