Wednesday, May 10, 2006

Parents Behaving Badly #2


...And in yet another example of parental stupidity, a Maine mom was arrested for helping her daughter and two classmates bake a batch of laxative-laced cookies as an anonymous "gift" for their teacher.

The girls left the plate on the teachers desk with a note that read "We made these cookies just for you, hope you enjoy them."

Julie Hunt showed the girls how to crush up an entire box of Ex-Lax, a chocolate-flavored laxative, to mix in the cookie batter and was charged with misdemeanor assault.

Four students were taken ill after eating the cookies.

The girls weren't charged, but have been suspended from school.


That's just Bullshit. With a capital B.

Call me Cruella de Mom, but I think those girls got off way too easily.

At the very minimum, they should have had to perform some kind of community service. If they've got the time to fart around and plan "pranks" like these, then they've got time to contribute something worthwhile to the world they live in.

Instead they get a vacation from school.

What if one of the "victims" had a medical condition like Crohn's Disease? Or Ulcerative Colitis? Instead of a case of the raging squirts, they could have landed up in the hospital with a serious and excruciatingly painful attack.

No offense to the intended victim, but what in the hell was that teacher thinking? Somebody leaves anonymous cookies on your desk, and you hand them out?

You should have put them in a drawer "for later" and pitched them at the first possible opportunity.

Which brings us back to Mom of The Year. WTF is wrong with you?

At any time did a voice inside your noggin say "This is a bad bad idea?"

Sometimes, there are just no words, but this isn't one of them.

Julie Hunt, you are either an evil person, or you're like school in the summertime.


No class. No class at all.

35 comments:

Nikki said...

My daughter's school will not allow any of the children to bring in anything that is home made - store bought only.

Until now, I thought that was the stupidest rule ever.

Charlie said...

*speechlessness*

St Jude said...

Act your age not your shoe size springs to mind!

Jim Big Toe said...

I think that we should bring public flogging to the good ole U.S.A. Anyone not old enough to do jail time should have to face a nice public flogging. At least that way they would have some consequence for their actions and maybe even a deterrent. Of course some people like a nice beating.

Kathy Cullen said...

I'm disappointed that my mom didn't think of this. LOL NOT.

ITA with you mom, that these brats got off WAY to easy. Not only would I have seen to a lot of community service, but I would have made sure it fit what they did, and required them to be working with smelly poop.

Rhonda said...

I think this is worthy of simultaneous "asshat" and "parents behaving badly" awards.

But, sometimes, there just aren't enough Asshats to go around, unless of course you go to school with these morons.

Charlie said...

Excuse me, Mom: I have to tell Rhonda something.

Asshats, tons of dog poop, recycling and packaging, getting rich? Ring a bell?

What if . . .

Rhonda said...

Pooper: You're a genious. Of course, you'll have to collect a commission on this idea. Besides, I can't go into this business without an associate named Pooper, now can I?

happykat said...

um....i know I'll get creamed for this, but I think you're all being a tad harsh.

Sure, the mom is a nuggethead and the kids are mean, but it was a prank. They're kids. They do stupid stuff. Yeah, the mom deserved to be arrested for her idiocy, but public flogging? Give me a break!

Attila the Mom said...

While I certainly don't advocate flogging, I don't think I'd feel too jolly about this little "prank" if it was my kid who got sick.

Would you?

clew said...

It boggles the mind.

I can't wait for my little boy to mingle with imbeciles like these in a few years!!!

Sven said...

I'd better steer clear of this conversation. As much as I believe school suspension does absolutely nothing to increase school safety or deter misbehavior I also believe that retributive punishment is equally useless in teaching lessons or repairing harm. Neither accomplishes anything productive or useful. Except perhaps to satisfy our vengeful tendencies.

Rootietoot said...

I guess to some, it's more important to be your child's friend than to be her parent. Shame. Tch. and all those other disparaging noises we Southern types make when a mother behaves badly.

Anonymous said...

WTF?

I agree--the girls should've gotten some kind of community service, at least.

What is with our culture?

Kathy Cullen said...

Happycat,I hope that you're kidding. These are not little kids. This wasn't a kick me sign on someones back. This was a drug, put into something meant for the teacher to consume. Kids got sick, and it could have been a lot worse, if someone had consumed even more of cookies.

Nikki said...

I'm sorry Mom - I'm going to shoot off at the mouth.

Happykat - While I agree that flogging is not the answer, neither is slapping them on the wrist.

I just did a post about how I love practical jokes, but this is serious. Mom gives a really good point referring to the possiblities that those kids who got sick eating cookies...what if they already had an intestinal disorder of some kind? She is so right when she says they could have been hospitalized.

What if your kid came home running to the bathroom every 30 minutes because of eating one of those cookies? I would have taken my otherwise perfectly healthy daughter to the doctor very concerned that she was ill. Let's not talk about her embarrassment that she ate a cookie with Exlax that she got from an adult she trusts. We won't even mention the fact that I would have been in the Dr's office extremely concerned for her, and we won't even go into how I more than likely would have had to miss a day of work until things ran their course.

There was nothing harmless about that "joke".

Attila the Mom said...

Sven--you know, I didn't advocate any kind of retribution for the girls in my post or anything *vengeful*.

I'm a firm believer in consequences--natural or otherwise.

Instead of spending a few days out of school on suspension, why not give them those days on IN-school suspension? Make them clean bathrooms, pick up trash, scrub off graffiti.

When I was in junior high, those punishments were doled out after the school year--like "you have to fulfill 2 days of work on the campus during summer vacation".

Yeah, I was stupid and I got it in the neck. And I felt it was unfair (because I was a young dumbass).

I spent two days cleaning out lockers with disinfectant, scrubbing floors and hauling trash.

It may be that "retributive punishment is equally useless in teaching lessons or repairing harm", but you know what?

I don't care.

It may be *useless* to the girls in the long run, but putting their asses to work cleaning up the place will certainly be more of a benefit to the greater good than sitting on their butts at home with suspension.

They might not learn any lesson, but somehow, somewhere, it's going to benefit someone else. JMO.

Anonymous said...

oohps! I think I need to go to the toily can!

TxGoodie said...

Wow! If it'd of happened in Texas (and it probably HAS!) they'd come out with a teevee movie ... "The Texas 43 year old wacko poop producing chocolate chip cookie crime" comes to mind....

Tell you what though...if they hadn't of heard the kids talking about it and put 2 and 2 together I bet they'd of blamed in on the mystery meat in the gruel du jour they served on Wed. in the school's laughateria...

HannoverFist said...

*sigh* That's the kind of crap you'd expect from a kid, but not from a parent! Yet another reason why our society is so effed-up.

Attila the Mom said...

TXGoodie--No kidding! And then in this society, the lawsuits would be flying!

Sven said...

Atilla:

"I didn't advocate any kind of retribution for the girls in my post or anything *vengeful*."

I didn’t mean to suggest you personally advocated vengeance or retribution although I maintain that much of school discipline is based on that premise.

"I'm a firm believer in consequences--natural or otherwise."

Me too – and the consequence should fit the offense. Unfortunately those consequences, natural or otherwise, rarely include any consideration of the impact the offense had on the victim and almost never include any sort of amends or reparation. That is the direction I am going.

"Instead of spending a few days out of school on suspension, why not give them those days on IN-school suspension?"

You’ll get no argument from me on this one.

"It may be that "retributive punishment is equally useless in teaching lessons or repairing harm", but you know what?

I don't care.

It may be *useless* to the girls in the long run, but putting their asses to work cleaning up the place will certainly be more of a benefit to the greater good than sitting on their butts at home with suspension."


Again, I completely agree that out-of-school suspension serves no purpose in this case. However, I disagree that the greater good is served by putting their asses to work. Sure we’ll get that bathrooms cleaned but how does that address the pain experienced by the students who ate the cookies?. When do the parents of those kids get a chance to face these girls and the mom to “educate” them on how this affected them? How will they be taught to account for their actions and make amends to the people they hurt? In the long run, I believe it will produce a greater benefit to society if these girls are truly held accountable BY THE ACTUAL VICTIMS and make amends.

In the interest of full disclosure: I did this exact sort of work in a local suburban high school for two years. We dealt with myriad issues - both big and small – to the eventual satisfaction of all involved, victim and offender. The problem is it takes a lot of time and effort as well as a fundamental shift in the way society views punishment.

Thanks for letting me hog your space. Still friends?

Attila the Mom said...

Of course, Sven. In fact, I like what you had to say even better!

I just thought there should be something *more* to it than what they got. I think you are absolutley correct in your analysis.

I, of course, have a natural bias. My son was stalked and anonymously harassed by two middle-school students who preyed on him because of his disability. We eventually had to get the police involved to apprehend them.

One of the parents said, "What's the big deal? Boys will be boys".

And that parent was indignant as hell to find out that the phone company and police could "unblock" his private number to find out where the obscene calls were coming from. Sheesh!

Michele said...

That's just sick and cruel
behavior.They should be
sentence to community
service cleaning bathrooms.
They'll soon see that shit
is not funny.

happykat said...

No, happykat is not kidding.
I think it's unwise to label these kids as bad apples for one really, really, really stupid act. The parent involved should have known better and now has to go to court, as it should be. But the kids are *not* short adults. Do we really expect ~kids~ to make the best and mature choices all the time? No, we don't. That's one of the reasons why juvenile criminal records are not open to the public.
If one of my children did something like this, you can believe I would be more than displeased and would exact my own form of discipline (not waiting for the school board or police do that). But to have this much venom directed at a kid for making a childish and unwise decision is amazing to me.


Sven has laid out the best course of action.

happykat said...

You need to check your reading comprehension, because I didn't say that I advocate doing nothing.

Nikki said...

Wow this discussion is really going isn't it?

Happykat - I don't think the venom is directed towards the kids alone, the venom is also directed at:

1) the mom for assisting and showing them how to bake said cookies and showed complete disreguard for any of the other kids and parents. Unfortunately, kids learn what they see. They will see that mom doesn't care about anyone else, she obviously doesn't respect them, why should they?

2) the type of punishment that the kids got. How can kicking kids out of school teach them a lesson? They don't want to be there anyway and suspending them didn't do anything for their conscience. How are they supposed to learn? It's plain that mommy isn't showing them.

We also need to consider those kids themselves. I'll agree that kids do stupid stuff, but what they did was malicious.

Something else that frustrates me beyond belief is that even when mom goes to court - more than likely - she will not be punished accordingly either. I really don't think there is sufficient punishment for her. I think corporal punishment may go just a tad to far for her and community service will not be enough for her either.

Kathy Cullen said...

No,kids are not small adults, I agree. However, this isn't just a prank. A prank is putting something in the cookies that is harmless but makes them taste bad. A prank is putting a kick me sign on their back. In other words, a prank is something that doesn't hurt, and certainly doesn't involve pharmacueticals.

While nobody advocated public flogging, or anything causing harm to the kids, they should be taught a lesson. My personal choice, is along the lines of what Sven talked about. I would send them to the childrens ward at a hospital to work with kids and find out what it might be like to be a sick kid.

If I were a parent, I'd also want to know what makes the kids hate the teacher bad enough to try to inflict physical harm. I didn't like all of my teachers, but I would never think of trying to make one sick. That takes a pretty sick mind.

Anonymous said...

I agree with you! (I'm in Maine).

TotalChaos said...

That Mother(?), is absolutely wrong(stupid). The girls should also have to do something besides get time off from school.

BTW, What you saw on my blog is art, done with Apophysis, called Flame Fractals. You would have to go farther down on the page to see other work done with the Program. That one was one of my most odd pieces.

Thank you for stopping in.

Charlie said...

After reading 37 comments, here is my opinion:

"How will they be taught to account for their actions and make amends to the people they hurt? In the long run, I believe it will produce a greater benefit to society if these girls are truly held accountable BY THE ACTUAL VICTIMS and make amends."

Sven said it, HappyKat agreed with it, and Miss Litzi ignored it.

I feel that these young girls, by facing their victims, will feel the same hurt they inflicted on their peers. By making amends, they will have taken responsibility for their actions; a lesson not soon forgotten.

Nightmare said...

I think that the girls shopuld have had a taste of their own medicine. Literally. Feed them little bitches a full bottle of laxitive and watch their insiudes come out.

carmachu said...

Wow, that mom needs to have her tubes tied.

And frankly, for the kids, accidents on the playground happen, or can happen.

Attila the Mom said...

Thanks everybody for taking the time to comment on this.

Lots of different opinions out there!

Anonymous said...

Super color scheme, I like it! Good job. Go on.
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