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Enough to Make a Grown Man Cry…
I watched a video linked on a Parler post the other day that got me thinking. If you’ve seen the video my description of it will immediately let you know which one I’m referring to. The problems I’m describing happen in families across this country, and I assume across the world.
In it, a young man was sitting with what I took to be his son who was about six to eight years old. The man is quizzing his son on some spelling – looks like he’s pulling them off a list on his phone. He asks the first two words, which the son gets right. Then he says something along the lines that the third word is the bonus round, get this right and I’ll give you five dollars (man, inflation from my childhood has rocketed!).
He tells the boy what the word is “pigeon.” But the way he says it is as if separate words — “pig-e-on.” So, yeah, not even close to how you say pigeon. The boy is a bit confused right off. The man doubles down on how he’s saying it and acting like how could the boy not know what the word is.
A woman I am assuming is the mother was videotaping this, and she jumps in to say it the right way, and they argue back and forth with many colorful words about it, each on getting angrier and angrier until the man storms out of the house.
Now, I think the video was posted in the spirit of “see how stupid people are, yuk yuk yuk” much like the photos of strange-looking people at Walmart, etc. And I found it funny at first. Har har har.
Now, I know nothing about any of the people in this video, and for all I know it could have been a big put on. But I can see things like this happening and it ended up really depressing me.
Here’s a young man, who apparently hasn’t had the best of educations, sitting with his son doing something that I think all fathers should do – be involved and help in their education. And he makes a mistake. He gets a bit upset when the initial corrections come. Not the best reaction.
Then the mother piles on, and instead of saying “hey, could I talk to you a minute over here where the small boy can’t hear us?” proceeds to argue with him in front of the kid, and pretty much calls him an idiot but with colorful words involved.
I’m left with anguish for that young boy. He’s watched his father get belittled by his mother. He’s watched his father get angry when he gets something wrong and is corrected. He’s had what was an education affirming experience turn into a mess. If that happens even somewhat regularly, how does he overcome that?
I’m left with pain for the father. I’ve been a young man and we all get things wrong. Even now as an older man, I bluster a bit when called on getting something wrong — especially when it makes me feel stupid. And my wife might poke fun at me, but she never belittled me in front of our son.
I’m left with sadness for the mother. Raising children is hard, and doing it by yourself is even harder. I’m sure there’s a lot of frustration and anger that boiled up into her reaction. But treating the boy’s father that way isn’t going to help either and may drive him away. That isn’t good for the son, which isn’t good for her either.
It’s not a poverty thing. It’s not a race thing. It’s not something that government can fix. I think there are things each community can do to make it happen less often, but it will always happen some.
No answers. Just depressing.
Published in General
sniff
Well, I pretty much have to blame the mother. She must have known that he wasn’t very bright, and chose to have kids with him anyway.
Luckily my wife didn’t notice until it was too late….
Oh come on. I bet you know how to say “pigeon.” In fact, I bet you’ve known how to say it for a loooong time.
I hate to think of parents fighting in front of the kids, especially with so much anger. That was the worst part–the fighting and humiliating each other. I imagine lots of these spats happen, with people stressed and frightened.
Yes, I’m sure it wasn’t the first time for that couple.
I presume the Mother posted the video to further the humiliation of the Father in public, which makes the situation that much more dysfunctional. So tragic and the expectation is their family situation will continue to degrade.
You mentioned you saw this video on Parlor. I have recently deactivated my FB account because of the cesspool of left leaning hatred. Is Parlor better, is there value in opening an account there?
Actually it’s Parler.
And this is one event. Why they would post it is beyond me.
I have fought with my wife in front of the kids. We have never belittled each other. But they also see us make up.
What we can always do, and what helps us, without doubt, is to turn the feelings of helplessness over to God.
So here, I ask Him to take this family in his hands and brush their brows and give them some peace.
If not to the parents, at least to the child.
All of us need His Peace. We have to accept it when offered. I know this well, as I have a thick head.
I’d say that Parler has a lot more right-leaning content, basically because so many people are opening accounts there (and other similar platforms for video, etc) in case they get banned on the mainstream social media, or for a similar reason as yours that they just can’t take it anymore but still want some social media.
So I do find some value in it, but I’m not exactly a social media maven anyway. I don’t know that I’ve posted anything there – I’m more of a content consumer than creator. Ricochet gets most of my output for good or ill.
That’s true. But it’s not as easy as people make it out to be. English can be tricky – in this case there isn’t an ‘n’ after the ‘g’ but you still say it ‘pig’ ‘neon’. I think a lot of people don’t know that, including the guy in the video.
*EDIT: if the individual in the original video sees this, I was just kidding above. Don’t say it that way either. It’s [ˈpijən].
Is pig-neon the same as a neon pig?
It’s like a visual palindrome.
I would want to see that video but it sounds awful. I’m not innocent of giving my husband a hard time. He doesn’t put a lot of thought into parenting or discipline and tends to do things that frustrate progress I make with our kids in the heat of the moment. And I can have an explosive temper.
But I also break rough spelling words into funny things to help my kids remember how to spell it… like “merchant” which would get spelled “m-e-r-c-h-e-n-t” by my 8 yo daughter, but tying it to a chanting mermaid and Monty python chanting, she has an easier time remembering the “a” from a bit of silliness.
It would be increasingly tragic if the dad was trying a bit of that himself to reinforce how to spell a tough word.
That’s certainly possible. And I remind people who have trouble spelling that, for example, an island, is land.
I haven’t seen the video and do not want to. Based on your description, I am heartbroken for the boy and somewhat disappointed in the father for losing his cool (good response would have been, “What? Oh, pigeon! Duh, right! Okay, son, let’s spell pigeon). But I have nothing but rage and contempt for the mother. Save the demeaning mockery for after the kid goes to bed (or better yet, don’t do it at all), and what kind of evil harpy posts something like this online?
@Maguffin, what was the response to the video on Parler? Was there a general consensus in favor of the dad, or mom, or what?
Well, now of course I can’t find it (Parler search isn’t that awesome – good for finding accounts or hashtags, not so good for individual posts).
I imagine that most of the responses are along the ‘har har har’ of my initial response. Some of them were probably even cruder than that. Parler doesn’t censor like some of the other platforms, but it is a social media platform on the internet, so it still has some of the same issues.
Even if my wife were dumb — and she definitely is not — I couldn’t imagine posting a video online that makes her look foolish. It’s pretty contemptible.
Perhaps wives of multi-millionaire senators and vice presidents have thicker skin?