Tag Archives: parents

Parents These Days

Image source OMGG.com

With Mother’s Day this past weekend and Father’s Day next month, now’s the time to show your beloved parents how much they mean to you. Not only did they give you life, but they have made sacrifices for your well-being since the day you were born. With thoughts of my amazing parents in mind, I couldn’t help but notice some not-so-intelligent parental decisions making headlines recently. Whether or not you have children, I think you could get something out of these stories (even if it’s just amusement). Here are some tips for those that are, or wish to be, parents.

1. Don’t make a porno to get yourself out of debt
Oh, Octomom. Nadya Suleman became internationally known when, in 2009, she gave birth to octuplets via in vitro fertilization. She has been under scrutiny ever since, especially after reportedly telling InTouch magazine that she wishes she had not had her children (after insisting that all 6 leftover embryos from her previous IVF treatments be implanted). Oh yeah, she had six kids before the octuplets.

Anyway, Octomom has turned to Octo-porn to get out of up to $1 million in debt. This is after she told Showbiz Tonight that she “wouldn’t even kiss someone for money.” Guess the debt got to be a little too much for this one. I bet her kids are proud.

2. Don’t put your five year old in a tanning bed
This story has been on every news outlet in existence in the past week. Known as “tan mom” in the press, Patricia Krentcil was charged with child endangerment in her New Jersey town of Nutley after allegedly letting her five year old daughter use a tanning bed. She denies the claim, and so does her salon, but at least 64 New York-area tanning salons have banned her from utilizing their services, some even hanging “wanted-style posters” behind their counters.

Whether or not this woman put her kid in a tanning bed, I feel awful for her poor daughter, who has to look at this every day and call it “Mom.”

Image source News 12 NJ via  HLN TV

3. Don’t strap your children to the hood of your car for a beer run
Classic. Two drunken parents go on a packy run and strap their four children to the hood of the car with a tow strap. Totally fine, right? The kids apparently agreed to it because it “sounded like fun,” which is the obvious response of kids ages 4 through 7. Dad was arrested with a DUI and no one really knows what happened to mom. My question is how the heck they could see out of their windshield with four kids laying on the hood… but I guess this should not be my biggest concern.

4. Don’t hire a creepy clown to stalk your children for a birthday present
This attractive man below is named Dominic Deville.

Image source Clockworx via  Huffington Post

For a fee, Dominic will send your child creepy texts, phone calls and letters warning them that they will be attacked when they least expect it. This goes on for a week. Then, wearing his lovely clown garb pictured above, he will “attack” your child by smashing a cake into his victim’s face. Classy. But don’t worry, if your child gets too scared, he will stop when asked by the parents.

This is one of those times where I wonder what was going on in a person’s head for them to think of this “business” as a good idea. What worries me more is that there are parents out there that would subject their child to this. There’s a difference between a harmless scare (like a haunted house, for instance) and being hunted by a strange, unknown man for a week, waiting for an inevitable attack. That screams FUN to me!

5. Don’t impregnate Snooki
‘Nuff said.

Now go give your mom, dad, stepmom, stepdad, guardian (or whoever the hell raised you) a big-ass hug!

Posted by Erin

Twitter Tattlers Beware!

One of the most ANNOYING things about being a savvy-twenty something in gen-Y (yes, I’m referring to myself), is teaching your…elders…to use technology.  Most of us can agree, parents just don’t understand.

I applaud my mom, who is an integral member of the 21st century; she can type using all 10 fingers (unlike someone I know who sits behind me in the office…), and has an iPhone, which she especially adores for its iBird app, an application that helps you go birding by ear.  She also signed up for a Facebook account, but usually complains about it saying:

“I don’t get it; Facebook sent me an email telling me exactly what Kathy wrote to me in a message, why can’t I just respond to this e-mail? Why do I have to go on Facebook?”

So I explain: “Because mom, it’s not about e-mailing, it’s about being able to interact on a more personal level with your friends and seeing their pictures and who else they’re talking with, et cetra, et cetra.”

“Oh, well, that seems stupid to me.”

Now my dad, on the other hand, he asked me to help him start a blog the other day.  Okay dad, that’s pretty cool of you, welcome to 2011!  So we set up his account, agree on a color palate, formatting style, title, etc.  I had to help him a little bit on the aesthetic, only because he works in finance, so all of his written material GENERALLY LOOKS LIKE ONE BIG LONG PARAGRAPH STUCK IN CAPS LOCK SO IT LOOKS LIKE THE SCREEN IS YELLING AT YOU!

After a grueling, P-in-the-A 60 minutes, where I did not hide my annoyance by his lack of command key knowledge, my dad had officially started his own blog, complete with a Twitter account, which I also helped him set up and choose peeps to follow.

Exhausted by the process, I tweeted to anyone that cared (which was no one) “ugh, teaching parents technology is SO ANNOYING!” and felt reprieve.  Minutes later, I had a reply tweet from my father.

#FML.

At first I was pissed I had to tutor a course on DIY blogging 101, now I’m pissed that parents are, in fact, integral members of the social cyber network.

Moral of the story: don’t underestimate your parents’ ability to finally enter the 21st century.

Posted by Hannah