Of Fathers and Sons.

Ref: The little thief in my class.
The little bugger did it again. He stole this other boy's collectors' cards and was caught doing it. That already pissed me off quite a bit but I let it go. It was the last day of school and it was a Parents / Teachers Meeting. I felt good and all was well...birds were singing and I was going to get some serious R&R over the weekend.

Then I met the thief's father.

The son of a bitch totally ruined my mood. I was done with all my interviews and I was packing up to go when he came and saw my CT. I joined the conversation, hoping to see what he was going to do with the kid and maybe suggest that he really needed to sit down with his son and have a good talk with him. (After the spanking he would never forget of course...The kid, not the dad...)
Anyway, the dumbarse m*********** had the audacity to defend his son's actions as "He's just being a boy..." That's when the alarm bells triggered in my head and I kept my mouth tightly shut.
He went on to accuse the two teachers of labeling his son a thief...well if the bloody shoe fits...He then went on to put together some demented argument about how his boy was just misunderstood and thieving was all part of growing up as a boy...
Uhm...no...Thieving is part of growing up as a criminal you moron!

And one wonders why we have kids like that in our education system. What an @$$hole. The worst part is he hid behind the veneer of christianity and claimed that we had to forgive his son for his mistakes as something that is part of the growing process...what a crock of sh*t. He ended up trying to guilt trip me by asking me if I had children. So bloody what? If my kid stole, he'd be in for the whooping of his life.

Bloody stupid parent.

On the other side of the spectrum, I talked to a divorced mother today whose son was in so much need of a male role model that he took me as said role model. That's a scary thought really, but also kinda sad. I was asked to mentor the kid and I didn't have the heart to say no...unfortunately, I don't know how to do this mentoring shtick so I don't really know what to do...

*igh.