Thursday, May 10, 2007
Alec Baldwin dropped out of the running for Father of the Year, which only increased my chances of winning the award myself. Pretty soon I’ll be atop the list, despite my telling my children that the play area at the mall is for terminally-ill children and the ball bin at McDonald’s is for contracting hepatitis.
These look like trivial things compared to leaving harassing voicemails for your daughter as Baldwin did. “You are a rude, thoughtless little pig,” he told her. Alec, of course she’s a rude, thoughtless little pig: she’s 11+.
nutgraf
I’ve never personally harassed anyone (at least not that I know of), but I bet I could flesh out the basic rules of harassment. It seems to me Rule Number 1 would be, “Don’t let your harassment be recorded.” Actually, that would be just about the only rule. Beyond that, it’s pretty much freestyle.
Although in his defense, Baldwin was unaware of his own daughter’s age. “I don’t give a damn that you’re 12 years old, or 11 years old,” he said. Once the kid gets too old for the birthday cards that are shaped like numbers, it gets difficult to keep track.
Now everyone in the world knows about his unconventional parenting technique. Everyone except, probably, his daughter. If you want to communicate something to an 11 (or possibly 12) year-old girl, you go with a text message or you don’t go at all.
I’ve never personally harassed anyone (at least not that I know of), but I bet I could flesh out the basic rules of harassment. It seems to me Rule Number 1 would be, “Don’t let your harassment be recorded.” Actually, that would be just about the only rule. Beyond that, it’s pretty much freestyle.
But countless near-celebrities don’t follow this one rule. Aren’t they getting harassed enough to know how to do it themselves? Pat O’Brien and Bill O’Reilly both left weird, quasi-erotic voicemails. Baldwin, possibly because his last name lacks an O and an apostrophe, just went for an old-school berating.
“You have humiliated me for the last time with this phone,” he said, wrongly. What he didn’t say, because it was so obvious that he didn’t need to say it, was the coda, “I’m drunk right now.”
I never thought I was a child-harasser, but recently my two kids have refused to go anywhere they weren’t carried. I have to carry them to the car, through the store, on walks to the park, and to dinner. I began to make it known that I thought they were being lazy. Then I went to a church meeting where the speaker specifically counseled to not call your kids lazy.
I came home and called my two kids to me. “They told me I’m not supposed to call you lazy anymore,” I said. “So I’m sorry.” My son hugged my leg and ran away.
Was that really such good news for him? Had I been harassing him about his laziness? Maybe I’m further away from Father of the Year than I thought.
Minster is a Lawrence junior in economics.
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