For all those who think Tommy Jordan is a great dad...

[MasochisticAvenger]

Well he is a troll, he posted false data

He posted data based on a belief not made clear in the original post (i.e. that since there is no difference between abusing a partner and abusing a child, the test for the partner would be equally valid for the child).

and ignored anyone who tried to correct him

He didn't ignore them; he simply didn't change his opinion at the first sign of opposition.

then he proceeded to call anyone who disagreed with him wacos when they point out that the way you treat your kid is different from the way you treat the person you are in an adult relationship with.

You mean how like so many people called him a troll because he had an opinion different to theirs?

 

[Joccaren]

As for it saying "Partner:" I'd say it really doesn't make any difference whether it's your spouse or your daughter. Abuse is abuse.

A fair number of them are parental rights until the child hits 18 though.
-Looks/Acts in a way that is intimidating or frightening: Entirely up to opinion. You break your mothers mum's ash vase, and tell me she won't look pissed. Now, is that abusive? No. If she starts beating you, yes. Simply being angry with a good reason is not abuse, and is an important part of parenting.
-Tries to control what the other person does ect.: Parental right. Until you hit 18, your parents are well within their rights to do this to you as they are considered to have better judgement than you, and are guiding you down a good course for your life, not trying to abuse you.
-Makes the other person ask for money... that is supposed to be shared: NONE OF HIS MONEY IS HERS. It is the fathers money. It would be like me coming up to you and telling you to give me money. Would you be being abusive if you said no? No, you wouldn't, as I have no right to that money. I doubt you go to your parents bank account and withdraw whatever you want to spend it, or that they'd let you. It is the fathers money, not the daughters, and it is up to him to do what he wants with it.
-Damages other person's property: It is not her property. It is his. He paid for it, it is inside his house, and he is the adult. He may have allowed her to use it, but by rights everything of hers is his, as he paid for it.
-Intimidates with weapons: I'm sorry, but when did he do that? When did he say 'And I'll shoot you next if you don't lift your game!', or shove the gun in her face? He used it as a tool to destroy her laptop. If you find something like that intimidating, you have paranoia issues IMO.
-Embarrasses the other person: Was not his intent at all. He had meant to put it up to her friends to show she did not just get away with being rude and ignorant, not to publicly embarrass her infront of the world.

Also:

It's in the emotional pain of having someone destroy your property.

She would beg to disagree with you. The girl herself is astounded at all the people saying 'That will emotionally scar her, teens are fragile!'. Really, they're not. They're more resilient than most give her credit for. Pretty much the only thought in her mind was 'Crap, no Facebook for two years'. Read his response in his video, it has been posted in this thread often enough. She doesn't mind, and she understands what she did wrong.
If I were to make a post abusing the forum staff here, and the friends of the forum staff here, I would get banned. Would that be the forum staff abusing me? No.
This is an example of a stricter style of parenting gone somewhat wrong as it went public. Really, he is dealing with it quite well.
I also note you said she should get paid for her chores. She DOES get paid for her chores. FAR more than she should be. Where do you think the laptop came from? I'll bet she didn't put any money towards it. Her phone? Her bed? Anything she owns?
It is something my parents showed me a while back. You DO get paid for chores through everything your parents give you. I complained once and went on strike, they took away my computer, Internet, phone, TV privileges, all the stuff I found fun, and left me with a room empty except a desk, my homework, my clothes and a bed. As you can imagine, I picked up my act right away. It is not a healthy attitude for a teen to have to believe they should just keep getting given things. They should not. The sooner such an attitude is destroyed, the better. Teens need to learn to respect what they get given, not just keep asking for more.

 

[mikeybuthge]

Maybe this is just cuz my parents would have done the same to me, but I don't find anything wrong with what he did, you wanna blame it on him being abusive fine, but when your eventual child starts acting like a selfish spoiled brat, posting about how the chores she does makes her feel like her parents are slave drivers, when she had to do what, sweep some floors, do some laundry, and she'd refuse to get a job and expected her dad to buy her everything... fuck that shit, i'd be grounding my child and breaking her electronics too

 

[MasochisticAvenger]

Maybe this is just cuz my parents would have done the same to me, but I don't find anything wrong with what he did, you wanna blame it on him being abusive fine, but when your eventual child starts acting like a selfish spoiled brat, posting about how the chores she does makes her feel like her parents are slave drivers, when she had to do what, sweep some floors, do some laundry, and she'd refuse to get a job and expected her dad to buy her everything... fuck that shit, i'd be grounding my child and breaking her electronics too

The only bit that made he raise an eyebrow was when he said she would be grounded for at least a few years. That's the part that seems kind of harsh to me.

I mean grounding a fifteen year old until college... because she made some stupid comments without thinking (i.e. she acted like a TEENAGER)... seems like a major overreaction.

 

[mikeybuthge]

yeah but to be fair, every parent threatens to ground their child til college at least once a year, it's like arguing with a kid in school and he tells you his dad's gonna beat up your dad, shit just happens, besides, maybe threatening to make her pay off the laptop, software, bullets, etc. will make her get a job, and she'll earn the value of money

 

[TechNoFear]

So when I refuse to pay $350 so my 16 yr old daughter can attend a concert I am being abusive?

When I will not let her drive the 300Kms and stay over-night with her 18 yr old boy friend it is also abuse?

Please try to gain some perspective.

I suggest waiting until you have experienced raising a teenager before critcising others parenting skills.

 

[ChildishLegacy]

I'm going to go ahead and repost my reply from the other thread about this garbage.

Ok, so I've kind of found here that this thread, with its 548 replies, is getting pretty ridiculous and pointless now. None of the arguments made for the father or for the girl even matter and have no basis, so lets all go together to the mystical world of logic land, and all find out why together shall we?

The video is 8 minutes long. In it all that we see or hear from this man, is that he is a father of a teenage girl, who has bitched about him behind his back on facebook, after spending money on her laptop for her. He then expresses his frustration with this, and shoots a laptop with a pistol.

Now, I think we should all know here, that relationships between parents and children on average tend to go on for a bit longer than 8 minutes. A lot of events and complications will happen throughout their lives and their relationship, they will feel differently about each other as time goes on, and certain themes will tend to emerge and dissipate as the child begins to grow up, and the parents will react to these themes and phases with the best interest of the child in mind (hopefully). This is a very complex cycle of emotions and conversations and living with each other, that in no way can any of us here comment on having seen the father shoot her laptop on a particular day (even if you do find it immature, angry or funny).

And that's the kicker. Any argument or statement for or against either party on this thread is based on extrapolation, do you see? Everybody watching that video is looking into an 8 minute window of this family's life and circumstances, some people here are assuming, based on this brief 'encounter' with the father here, that he is a gun toting redneck with no parental skills at all, and that he probably has a history of erratic behavior or violence, and that the events preceding this video consisted of bad parenting, him neglecting his daughter and making her work for nothing, and that the events proceeding the video will consist of harsh punishment, more neglecting his daughter and making her life miserable. Others are assuming that the girl is an ungrateful, spoiled brat who had it coming to her, and that the events preceding this video consisted of her constantly moaning at her father, talking about him behind his back and being lazy and not doing her chores, and that the events proceeding the video consisted of her being righteously punished, and her father having her find the values of honest work and independence.

We do not, nor will we ever know, that any of these things are true. Everybody here is guessing from this tiny, insignificant gesture, the true nature of this family's life. Some may be doing it because they have experienced similar spats with their parents, and empathize with the girl, some may be doing it because they dislike people showing disrespect. Either way, you see what you want to see with this video, you are making up your own timeline of this family's history and future either side of this 8 minute video. Some people are trying to psychologically analyse this guy from the way he behaves in front of a camera for a few minutes, some are trying to scrutinize the facebook posts, and I honestly have no clue why, this is none of your business, I'm sure you wouldn't like the rest of the world judging your family issues. These are all pointless gestures anyway, nobody wins from this thread, there's nothing to be debated because we know nothing else of this family, we won't know who 'wins' in the end, but we will know that a lot of people will lose their time when they could at least be discussing something more worthwhile and interesting on this forums, if not just taking a break from them all together (seriously, the level of 'heated discussion' here is getting ridiculous for such a trivial topic, sometimes some people need to take a look at what they're getting so wound up about).

Now I think I'm being too optimistic of the escapist community here when I say this, but it's worth a try:
/thread

These threads clearly aren't about this man and his video anymore, people just relate to it and clearly are feeling bitter about their own feelings/problems, and are using this video to vent this.

 

[MasochisticAvenger]

Oh dear, it seems I'm abusive. The look I give when annoyed has been described as 'instantly lowering the temperature by 20 degrees' and I can easily intimidate a big agressive guy.

What absolute idiot wrote that text the OP copied?

Aside from the obvious grammatical errors, the criteria of abuse is actually quite solid... when you use it to determine if a PARTNER is abusive as it is intended rather than a parent.

 

[MasochisticAvenger]

You mean how like so many people called him a troll because he had an opinion different to theirs?

Yeah, that one guy who called him a troll before he decided to declare everyone who doesn't share his opinion a "wacko" is really a good comparison... Or that he called people dense in the other thread he posted that in just for disagreeing with him...

Oh don't get me wrong, I fully believe the original poster is clinging far too hard to a point of view so easily proven wrong with even the slightest bit of logic (namely that a test used to determine an abusive partner can not be used to also determine an abusive parent). However, I also don't believe he is doing it for the sake of pissing people off.

Although I will admit his argument of "it's different because she's fifteen and not five" did set off my warning bells...

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

As for it saying "Partner:" I'd say it really doesn't make any difference whether it's your spouse or your daughter. Abuse is abuse.

It does matter since it's not abuse when parents control their kids, make important decisions for them, order them around and deny them money and other privileges. That is not abuse. It's called parenting. Raising your kids so they don't grow up to become spoiled ungrateful and disrespectful shitheads.

 

[ShindoL Shill]

As for it saying "Partner:" I'd say it really doesn't make any difference whether it's your spouse or your daughter. Abuse is abuse.

Yes, but this is the wrong criteria. By this, if you tell your kid not to hang around with the kid who is probably involved in a gang but you just aren't sure, or if you take away a toy/laptop/TV/whatever as punishment then you're abusing them. That's not abuse, that's parenting. If he had threatened to shoot her, that would be abusive. He didn't.

If you want better criteria, check on the ChildLine website. They probably have a list of more appropriate things.

 

[CrazyGirl17]

Thank you! Nice to see other people think the guy overreacted here... (I mean, yeah, she might have been a bit of a brat, but still...)

 

[Irridium]

destroys the other person's property or threatens to kill pets

He bought the laptop, it's his property. It may be a gift, and that would be a dick thing to destroy it. But if all gifts are now you're property, then any parent who tries to take something from a child would be considered theft. So where exactly is the line with this?

OK, look, I see this argument over and over again in one variation or another, but in any other context it makes no sense whatsoever.

(I don't have children, so references to this are hypothetical)
If I give my child a gift, by your logic it's still my property, and I can do whatever I like with it.

If I give my best friend a gift... Are you seriously implying I can walk into their house and destroy it, because I was the one that gave it to them in the first place?

How about if a shop gives me something for free? Since I didn't technically pay for it, it's clearly a gift of some kind.
But, does that mean the shop technically still owns it? No. I do. Because they gave it to me.

if you give someone a gift, it is generally understood that you relinquish ownership of it, and the person who received it is now it's rightful owner.

So... On what grounds does the parent/child relationship otherwise undermine this basic concept of gifts and ownership?

But that's what I was kind of getting at (believe it or not, I started as a whole "he owns it" type person, but had that thought as I was typing, now I'm not so sure).

If you give a gift to a child, and relinquish all ownership, then what about parents who take the stuff away from a child in order to punish them? Would't that be theft?

If you gave a gift to another kid, say for his birthday, chances are the parents will take that gift away from their child if he/she is acting up. Isn't that theft? Why is that ok in order to punish the child, but doing that to anyone else isn't ok?

Why is one type of felony (destruction of property) not OK, but another (theft) is?

 

[CrystalShadow]

destroys the other person's property or threatens to kill pets

He bought the laptop, it's his property. It may be a gift, and that would be a dick thing to destroy it. But if all gifts are now you're property, then any parent who tries to take something from a child would be considered theft. So where exactly is the line with this?

OK, look, I see this argument over and over again in one variation or another, but in any other context it makes no sense whatsoever.

(I don't have children, so references to this are hypothetical)
If I give my child a gift, by your logic it's still my property, and I can do whatever I like with it.

If I give my best friend a gift... Are you seriously implying I can walk into their house and destroy it, because I was the one that gave it to them in the first place?

How about if a shop gives me something for free? Since I didn't technically pay for it, it's clearly a gift of some kind.
But, does that mean the shop technically still owns it? No. I do. Because they gave it to me.

if you give someone a gift, it is generally understood that you relinquish ownership of it, and the person who received it is now it's rightful owner.

So... On what grounds does the parent/child relationship otherwise undermine this basic concept of gifts and ownership?

But that's what I was kind of getting at (believe it or not, I started as a whole "he owns it" type person, but had that thought as I was typing, now I'm not so sure).

If you give a gift to a child, and relinquish all ownership, then what about parents who take the stuff away from a child in order to punish them? Would't that be theft?

If you gave a gift to another kid, say for his birthday, chances are the parents will take that gift away from their child if he/she is acting up. Isn't that theft? Why is that ok in order to punish the child, but doing that to anyone else isn't ok?

Why is one type of felony (destruction of property) not OK, but another (theft) is?

I understand the confusion. But I think I came to an answer in a previous post.

It sort of makes sense if you consider the parent to be in a role similar to the police.

If a random person takes something from you against your will, it's theft.
If a police officer takes it, it's not theft if there was a legitimate reason to do so.

Taking people's cars for instance if they repeatedly ignore traffic laws is actually surprisingly common.

In that kind of context you might be able to argue that it's OK for a parent to do that.
(But that supposes the parent to be an authority figure, and it's still something quite different from assuming the parent owns the child's property.)