No matter how much we’d like to believe our kids are perfect, the stark truth is that none of them are.
Now, I’m not suggesting the majority of parents aren’t doing their jobs – far from it – merely that childhood is a steep learning curve, one in which virtually all participants will make mistakes they’ll look back on and regret.
Perhaps what matters most when such things occur isn’t what has happened but rather how said child learns from it and moves on.
That is why one dad demanded that his daughter shave her head completely bald after she was caught making fun of another student who had lost all of her hair from chemotherapy. But after his bold parenting move, this dad is getting some major heat for his choice of punishment. He doesn’t care what others think, however, and tells CafeMom that he believes it was a perfectly reasonable consequence for his girl’s actions.
In a post that has since been deleted, the dad explained that he has full custody of his teenage daughter and was furious when she got in trouble for making fun of another girl “who lost her hair from cancer treatment. Including pulling off her wig.”
The dad tells CafeMom that his daughter is dating the other girl’s ex-boyfriend and of course, this results in drama.
“They were having an argument in class about stupid teenage gossip regarding my daughter’s boyfriend. At some point, the other girl mentioned how my daughter’s boyfriend was just using her for s-3.x (this was a big shock to me as I had no idea she was s-3.xually active) and called my daughter a s-l.u.t. That’s what escalated the situation and resulted in the wig incident. Supposedly they have been arguing in class ever since my daughter started dating the guy in question. Just stupid teenage ‘he said she said’ nonsense.”
Knowing that there is some “pre-existing bad blood” between the two, Dad still doesn’t think any of it “even begins to excuse her behavior.”
“Not how I’ve raised my daughter to treat people and it truly disgusted me to hear how she acted from her deputy principal,” he wrote. “She showed no remorse. She tried to excuse her behavior by saying the girl in question deserved it. Again, I don’t care what she said, that behavior is inexcusable.”
Because talking didn’t get them anywhere, the dad came up with two punishments: She could either live without technology OR she could shave her head completely bald.
Of course, his daughter chose to lose her hair over her cell phone, but that didn’t mean she was happy about her choice.
Although both his daughter and his ex-wife went ballistic about the punishment, the dad was firm on making her follow through with it. “She will go to the hairdresser and get a cue ball haircut. As in, a completely shaved head, as bald as the hairdresser can do,” he wrote. “No wig. She has to go to school like that until it grows back.”
Now, Dad says that everyone thinks he went overboard and Mom is furious that “it will make her the target of b-u.l.l.y.i.n.g.” But to Dad, that’s exactly the point — to teach her some compassion.
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Needless to say, his method of rebuke has drawn plenty of criticism online, but he isn’t phased by any of it. On the contrary, he told CafeMom that he thinks it was a perfectly acceptable reaction.
