Update:
This may come as a wild shock to some.. wait for it.. wait.... (I need that guy who did the awesome HD youtube parody to do me an intro here. Where is he when I need him?)
I'm NOT a hero... of ANY kind... at all.
I'm not a super-dad, or awesome parent.
I'm a normal guy with reasonable a moral compass that I try very hard to keep pointed north. I make a LOT of mistakes. Did I say a LOT? I mean a WHOLE lot! Daily... sometimes hourly!
I'm extremely lucky to have a very strong wife who tolerates me and puts up with my mistakes, and who herself is strong enough that she can put me in my place with only a look.. no really.. you haven't seen her "I'm not kidding anymore" face... it's serious.
(For example I can apparently destroy a laptop and garnish world-wide attention in mere seconds, but I guarantee tomorrow morning my wife will say "Hey Chuck Norris. Make the freakin BED WILL YOU PLEASE" because I'll forget to.
(I have to admit the "Chuck Norris wears Tommy Jordan pajamas" comment will stay with me for the rest of my life. I want that on a bumper sticker!)
I'm lucky to have great kids (two of them) who look up to me despite all my mistakes.
I make bad parenting decisions all the time. We all do. Personally, I stand behind the decision I made earlier this week by posting the video. I don't find fault with it. If I had it to do again... let's see... I'd do it almost the same.
I'd not be smoking a cigarette. (That's a habit I promised my wife I'd quit as soon as I could afford to just go out and buy a Chantix prescription. She absolutely hates it and I'm getting mature enough to want to quit it for my own reasons as well.)
I'd not have used the word "ass" in my comment directed at my daughter. That was rude and a bad example of a parent using the "Do as I say, not as I do" philosophy
I'd have worn my Silverbelly Stetson, not my Tilley hat if I'd known that image was going to follow me the rest of my life and I'd probably have cleaned my boots.
That's it. I meant all the rest of it. My wife is OK with it. My daughter is OK with it. My Mother is OK with it. I'm OK with it. We're the only ones that matter.
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For those that feel the need to keep calling the police and CPS. lol
Apparently both the local police and the department of social services are OK with it. Yes they came. Of course they came. They received enough "Oh my god he's going to kill his daughter" comments that they had to. I knew that the moment it went viral.. it was too late and it was inevitable. I'm only surprised it took as long as it did to be honest.
The police by the way said "Kudos, Sir" and most of them made their kids watch it. I actually had a "thank you" from an entire detectives squad. And another police officer is using it in a positive manner in his presentation for the school system. How's about those apples? Didn't expect THAT when you called the cops did you?
The kind lady from Child Protective Services looked all through the house, the yard, and found ours to be a healthy home. She saw the unloaded guns in their rack with the magazines removed and stored separately and safely. Funny thing: The case officer asked to see "the gun".... "Umm, sir, may I see the actual..umm.. weapon used for the video?" She wasn't at all scared of me but I could tell she doesn't like guns as a general rule. To each their own though. She was comfortable that I was adhering to NC gun safety regulations for the protection of minors, and that's all she needed. But of course if you want to continue, I'm just going to leave a pot of coffee on for the next officers who come by. (Digress: Maybe I can get Krispy Kreme to sponsor me with lifetime donuts? Oh God that would be heaven. Dunkin? Crap... KK all the way....)
She asked if I minded if she interviewed my daughter privately but that I didn't have to agree. I let her meet in private and then she and I met for about an hour and a half. At the end of the day, no I'm not losing my kids, no one's in danger of being ripped from our home that I know of, and I actually got to spend some time with the nice lady and learn some cool parenting tips that I didn't know.. I use them on my 8 year old son, but not on my fifteen year old daughter.. but now I will! There were a few things I thought she was "too old" for, but after talking to the case worker, I feel like it's worth a shot to try them. Maybe I'll sell those secrets in my next book! (Seriously? You just got mad didn't you? I'm kidding. Besides, that would still only give me two pages of material- one parent tip page and one page on handgun selection techniques appropriate for different electronic destructive purposes.)
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Back to me being a normal guy... I digressed again.
You guys caught me on eight and a half minutes of ONE day in my life, probably the worst day in my life as a father. So, all in all, I consider the vast overwhelming show of support to be very very gratifying... that was me at my worst, not my best. If most of you found me OK as a Dad at that time, then I'm definitely OK the rest of the time. I was angry, hurt as hell, emotional as can possibly be, and stunned still. I'd taken an hour to compose myself, but apparently I should have waited longer.. and maybe used the .22 instead of the .45. (And since when does an 8 minute video EVER go viral? And maybe the next video I'll do will be auctioning the pistol I used.. that should buy some serious college tuition, but please understand that I will definitely use the profits to also purchase a replacement .45.)
I'd like to think that if a camera followed me around and filmed every moment of my life as a parent, most of you out there would still put me in the plus column. Truthfully most of you would probably be bored. I'm just ordinary. I was raised old fashioned, and I raise my kids the same way... the modern generational concepts be damned!
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And OK, so THAT brings me to a topic I'll close with, though I had no intention of speaking on it when I started this rant. (Hey, aren't the 25 thousand of you who subscribed really regretting it now? I'm always this scatter brained. Makes you wonder how I formed enough sensible sentences to write a book doesn't it? Then again... maybe that accounts for the book sales being in the toilet...)
So, my last point:
I've received a LOT of comments (and by lot you have to understand there's literally MILLIONS of them. I'll likely never be able to read them all in my lifetime) pointing out that I was raised old fashioned apparently that that I needed to learn to be a parent in today's world.
Umm.. is there a polite way to call bull***t!?
The kids today ARE self entitled, spoiled, adverse to working, and basically have NO usable skills taught to them in schools. (Yes some of you out there excel. If you've graduated high school and at least pay some of your own bills, then I'm not talking to you. If you however are 25 and live with your parents because you're too lazy to get a job, then yes, I'm talking to you. Half of that is the parent's fault for thinking that the school system is supposed to raise their kids. The other half is a parent's fault for letting our school systems get to the utterly pathetic state they are in. It's your kid.. so no matter what it's ALWAYS your fault.. get it?
I'll give you a real example from the NC school system. My daughter just finished Honors Geometry in school. Halfway through the semester she asks me "Dad, can you help me type this math problem into your graphing calculator? I can't get the equation to come out right." I said "sure" and went over to help out. The problem was about calculating the tangent of a line, but I can't remember the specifics of it at the moment. I took a look at it and said "Honey, why don't you just do the problem manually... you know, on a piece of paper? It's pretty easy."
She honestly looked at me like I was a complete idiot! "You can't do it with a pencil and paper, Dad. Sheesh!"
I stared at her dumbfounded. "Honey, you DO know that tangential math has been around since the 1600s, right? Over 500 years. Long BEFORE graphing calculators existed..., right?"
Her response was "Well, we're not taught that. We're just taught how to enter it into a calculator and get the right answer."
Absolutely SURE she must be crazy, I checked.... and she's right. HONORS mathematics at the high school level doesn't teach kids basic math principles. At all!!! If a modern honors geometry student had to calculate the distance of a line from the top of a flag pole to any point in space relative to the ground.. they have no idea how to do it. (How many of you just asked your kids to show you how to do that? Wait... how many more are Googling it right now? Stop. That's cheating.)
Further, almost every state now is taking "writing" out of schools. Kids are now being taught to print, and that's it. No need for actual writing because they all have computers. I'm NOT making this up! This is TRUE!! They learn the alphabetic characters... and nothing more. The age of eloquent thought borne by patient strokes of pen to paper... are gone like Rhett Butler's sex appeal.
So let me recap... you don't learn math, you don't learn to write actual words without the benefit of spell-check. You don't apparently learn grammar either because I've SEEN those text books and quizzes.. horrible.
Yet you want ME to stop raising MY child with old fashioned methods that actually made me fairly intelligent, capable of fending for myself, capable of managing money, holding a job, respecting my elders, etc?
So you can replace it with what? You want to teach kids it's OK to talk back to parents as long as they have the freedom to express themselves. You want to outlaw spankings. You've obviously made it OK for them to be stupid upon graduating high school. You've recently made it illegal for kids to work around any animal that can harm them under the age of 18, to include working in hay lofts, around dogs, or cats, horses, or cattle, etc. (Thanks for that law Obama.. idiot) You won't let them work in a restaurant that serves alcohol until 18 in most states. You won't let them work at ALL until 15 (It was 13 for me, but Dad lied and got me started when I was 12). When are they supposed to learn actual adult stuff exactly? When do they learn responsibility? No kid left behind? Pfft.. EVERY kid left behind! (Dang I'm mad now.. maybe I WILL run for President... no, wife already vetoed that one. I'd really love to though.. really, seriously!)
"Modern" parenting raises ill-prepared kids who can't do anything and have no skills because they're protected from even LEARNING them until 18 years old, at which time you want us parents to throw them out into the world, send them off to college, and expect them to be productive members of society? You can take your "modern" parenting, and shove it. Jeezus people. Half of you think chores at 15 are too much! God forbid we make them actually WORK too!
(packing my soapbox away and going to bed now)
