I will withhold my opinion on spanking because I don't think this is the place for it. I know there are implications that the father in this story has been a victim of circumstance, but I really have to question why his go to parenting style is to be consistently negative and irritable towards his child, and that he would even be tempted to strike his daughter in the face. I know parenting style is a highly individual thing, but at what point do we start holding someone accountable for their mistakes? Does having a busy and demanding life excuse you from your obligation to treat others respectfully? (These aren't rhetorical questions, I really do wonder about these things)
He really isn't "consistently negative". He demonstrates that he finds her cute regularly, and he doesn't consider a bane of his existence or something. He's a parent who gets annoyed when his brat of a daughter doesn't do chores. That's...extremely common. Natural, in fact. And he doesn't even really punish her, except a vague event in the past he instantly regretted. She gets an allowance, she gets his affection, how many "mistakes" are there, really? Some insensitivity toward a situation he could never relate to (i.e. menstruation)?
You also don't really have to "respect" your kids, because kids are generally kind of awful. You raise your kids, and don't treat them badly, but they're generally too immature to be deserving of respect. That said, blogging about his lazy daughter without her consent was somewhat lacking in respect on one hand, but on the other a lot of parents do that and it's not REALLY harmful.
But really, I think your perception of him as a parent is too negative. His daughter doesn't even hate him, though she complains regularly (and of course she does, because she's around that age). He's an awkward parent for sure, but meh, he's also alone. Aside, never really understood why people get upset over the prospect of spanking, having known children who suffered actual abuse.
last edited at Nov 17, 2016 9:09AM
