This Guy Who Makes His Son Fight: Tries To Fight The Other Kid For Beating Up His Son: Needs To Pick A Side
PALM COAST, Fla. - A Palm Coast middle school parent encouraged his 14-year-old son to fight another student and then stepped into the fight, pushing the student off his son and threatening him, deputies with the Flagler County Sheriff's Office say.
Deputies responded to Indian Trails Middle School Monday for a fight between two boys. A witness told them that the fight was instigated by 34-year-old Anthony Gardiner, the father of one of the boys.
The victim told deputies, "He was walking to the park to catch his ride home when a grown man started yelling at him to fight his son." The teens dropped their bags and the fight began, according to the report.
When the opposing teen was "getting the upper hand" during the fight the, 215-pound Gardiner stepped in and pushed him off his son, according to the arrest report.
Full story here.
Look, you can’t be the dad who makes your kid fight people. You can’t. You just can’t. You can tell him about that time you fought someone back in “Vietnam”, you can make him watch Rocky for the thousandth time, hell, you can even suggest it; but by no means necessary can you order your kid to fight someone who’s right in front of you.
Okay, now if you MUST order your kid to fight someone who’s right in front of you, if there’s NO other way out of whatever situation this is, then BY NO MEANS CAN YOU BAIL YOUR KID OUT WHEN HE STARTS GETTING BEATEN. You gotta pick a side, guy. You gotta decide where your priorities lie. Either he’s going to get bullied or he’s going to get beat up in a fight, that’s the way this thing is going- you can’t prevent either.
You can’t just go tossing your kids into fights right and left because this is what happens. Chances are if you’re going out of your way to tell your kid to fight someone, that he’s not very good at fighting. That’s just the way it is. That’s coming from a guy who’s not very good at fighting. I’m great at taking punches, not great at delivering them, landing them, or even throwing them: just good at receiving them with enthusiasm. So if you go tossing a kid who doesn’t want to fight into a bunch of situations where he’s going to have to fight, then odds are he’s going to get his ass beat! That’s fine! Well it’s not fine, it’s still pretty fucked up of you; but there’s a lesson to be learned in there somewhere. Or, alternatively, you keep your big mouth shut, avoid this whole thing all together, and your son doesn’t get beat up; there’s a lesson in there too. But you can’t have it both ways, dad. You just can’t. Once you make that fight bed, you gotta let your son sleep in it. You’re all up in your son’s cool-aid and you don’t even know the flavor. Know the flavor, guy. Know the flavor. I guarantee this kid would rather get his ass kicked than have dad running around threatening people with his knife.
