An Arkansas mother, upset with her son for bullying a classmate and stealing his iPod, made him stand on a street corner ringing a bell and wearing a sandwich board detailing the error of his ways.
He’s very embarrassed. And I told him, I said the way you feeling right now, I’m embarrassed, too,” Bertreice Dixon, mother of 12-year-old Montavious Lewis told a Little Rock TV station, “By, you know, be tough in front of his friends, and like I told him, you gonna have to change your ways or else you’re gonna go down a road where you gonna end up in prison or dead.
Montavious doesn’t deny the charges. His school’s making him cut the grass this summer as a punishment. Parent Dish columnist Rachel-Campos Duffy asks, “Is this tough love or psychological abuse? Is her punishment excessive or does she know her child, his history and environment better than we do? Is she a heartless authoritarian mom or a champion of the ethos of personal responsibility?”
Comments on the Parent Dish message board, well over a hundred, strongly side with the mom. Can’t say I disagree. Times and standards change, but some of the discipline meted out by my father, an blue-collar Italian of the old school, would have led to his being hauled away in shackles today. If I had done what Montavious copped to as a child, I probably would have been grateful to escape with only public humiliation. Of course I never did anything like Montavious is accused of, which may be the point.
Update: Get this child a sandwich board and a bell.
She would rather embarrass her child and cause him the pain of humiliation that visit him in jail or have to pick out a coffin? What is the problem here? It is a monster who neglects their child and does not have the courage to meet the responsabiites of being a parent.
Comment by Jen S — June 6, 2008 @ 12:25 pm
I’m not sure about this one. First of all, the news report gives no context. It’s impossible for me to form an opinion without knowing more. How does this mother conduct herself? How has she punished her son in the past, and how has he responded?
In the abstract, I can see that tough punishment may help this kid. But punishment must also come to a close. This punishment won’t.
Even if he tries to put it behind him, it will be there at the click of a mouse. It was on the news. It’s now on video all over the internet. It will likely hit YouTube if it hasn’t already. Perhaps future employers and friends will Google his name and watch him with the sandwich board and bell, years down the road.
That mother should have kept cameras away. She seems to have welcomed them. To me that is not decent.
Comment by Diana Senechal — June 7, 2008 @ 11:09 am