This Week in Weird News: Parents Behaving... Oddly
One wielded a gun against a defenseless laptop while the other wielded a laser pointer and directed it at a teenage goalie’s eyes.
In both cases, two fathers have been receiving a lot of publicity for their unorthodox approaches to parenting.
The first father says he was at his wits’ end. His 15-year-old daughter would not stop putting rude, profane and disrespectful material about her parents on her Facebook page, no matter how he and his wife tried to punish her -- including grounding her for months and taking away her laptop -- to put an end to the behavior. In frustration, Tommy Jordan took his daughter’s laptop and fired several bullets into it and posted a video of the incident on YouTube, then on his daughter’s Facebook page in order to teach her a lesson. The video has been watched tens of millions of times.
During an interview with the Today Show’s Matt Lauer, Jordan said he thought he had to resort to “her level” in order to get through to her. “She put it on Facebook,” Jordan said. “I put it on Facebook.” Seventy-three percent of respondents to a Today Show poll said they supported Jordan’s actions.
The second father is facing criminal charges after he aimed a laser pointer at players of the opposing hockey team which was facing off against his high school daughter’s team during a playoff game. His daughter’s team won 3-1 but members of the opposing team, including its goalie, said they were distracted by the laser. During the game, fater school authorities said they saw the father with the laser pointer, he was thrown out of the game and subsequently banned from his daughter’s high school events.
That hockey dad, a now contrite Joseph Cordes, is facing charges of disturbing the peace, according to media reports. Cordes told his local CBS affiliate: “I wish I could undo it. I feel like a complete jerk. It was very stupid, completely immature for a 42-year-old man to be doing that.”
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