My hat is off to the mother in Baltimore for taking care of her son the old-fashioned way.
It just goes to show my mother was right. “Every mother knows her own,” she would say whenever I asked her how she knew it was me. She could pick me out of a crowd at 100 yards with a blindfold on, especially if I was doing something that was not on her approved list of things to do.
This mother recognized her son through a hood through a gaggle of other students. When she saw him throw a rock at a cop she marched right in, grabbed him by the scruff of his neck like an errant puppy, and gave him a few 100 smacks — old-fashioned mom justice. My mother would have used a wooden spoon, though, so this kid should be grateful it was not my mother that was after him.
In the end, this child will remember what he did and hopefully will have the good sense to mind the lesson his mother taught him — walk the straight-and-narrow and do not, under any circumstance, commit an act of such violence. This is not the way to go through life.
His mother did not condone, did not say, “Not my son!” and was in no way going to let him slide on this one.
“This one mother grabbed her child who had a hood on his head and she started smacking him on the head because she was so embarrassed,” said Baltimore Police commissioner Anthony Batts. “I wish I had more parents who took charge of their kids tonight.”
I agree.
These kids should not have even been there, let alone participated in this debacle. Stores were burned, business wrecked, and lives destroyed. I don’t care how justified they think their actions are, no act of violence justifies this wanton rioting and disregard of other’s properties. This crowd was so unruly they wouldn’t let the firemen put out the fire — each time the fireman connected a hose, some thug cut a hole in it.
What kind of insanity is this?
How dare they.
These kids don’t work, don’t participate, and they have the nerve to destroy what someone has worked a lifetime for? The parents of all those hooligans should be ashamed of themselves for not getting out there and giving their own children a few good wacks. They should all take a lesson from this woman.
Not fort Nuthin™, but it is time that parents seriously become parents again. The children in this country don’t need parents that are friends, they need parents that are parents.
Follow me on Twitter @JDelBuono.
