Personally, I would have found this very hard to do to my son when he was younger. Oh, I would have punished him alright. But I’m not sure I’d make such a public display. Then again, I never had a son who bullied a kid for his iPod. Maybe it’s when a mother (possibly a single parent, for all I know) has to go to these extremes when there’s more than an iPod involved.

If he never does it again, it will have been worth it. My question is, if it’s not enough later on, and his pals pressure him into bigger things when he gets older, can she keep turning up the heat?

manwithblackhat on June 1, 2008 at 10:25 PM

TheCulturalist on June 2, 2008 at 9:18 AM

Most of my son’s problems (drugs, alcohol, stealing Mom’s car) occurred in his first two years of high school. His mother left me when he was five. And although I had joint custody, in Virginia that’s pretty meaningless. So while he was going through all this stuff, and was virtually estranged from me, I would call the school nearly every week. I’d call his teachers. I’d visit them without him knowing. I always knew what was going on, and he couldn’t figure out why. And while I was powerless during that time, it didn’t last forever.

By the time he finished his junior year, he was a recovering alcoholic, and told me in a rehab session that he wanted me back in his life. Because I had been following him stealthily for two or three years, I already knew what to do. That summer, we went to Seattle, which was sort of his “vision quest.” When he started senior year, he signed up for philosophy. This didn’t sit well with me, being an “old-school” Catholic. So I taught him philosophy too, with taped lectures, and homework assignments. In his first quarter, he was an “A” student for the first time since sixth grade. He read Plato’s Republic, he read Tolstoy, he read De Tocqueville — all without them being assigned.

After working for a couple of years, he’s completing his first year as an honor student (well, most of the time) at the Art Institute. He works full time on top of that — ironically, as a bartender. Ironic, because he celebrated his sixth anniversary of sobriety a few weeks ago.

Only a clueless society raises clueless kids. They desperately want our attention, whether they admit it or not. There is a particular challenge facing African-American families today, and it’s not poverty. Generations of poor managed to avoid lives of crime and depravity. It’s the caché that’s associated with the “ghetto” mystique. Kids in the suburbs, in homes worth over 500K, are acting like they’re deprived, and it’s simply ridiculous.

But in our usual fit of PC, we buy into it. (Well, not you guys.)

manwithblackhat on June 2, 2008 at 1:40 PM