People do stupid things… and parents are no exception. However, there comes a point when you wonder where the line is drawn between poor parenting techniques and seriously deranged moms and dads who are inherently evil.
My fellow blogger Andrea and I have written dozens of posts that feature parents who exhibit questionable behavior when it comes to raising their offspring. In some cases it’s hard to tell if their actions—-many of which fuel news headlines and land them in jail-—are the result of in-the-moment bad parenting decision making, stupidity, selfishness or a combination of all three.
Case in point:
*The Balloon Boy’s nitwit father and his whacked out plan to get a reality TV show.
*The Alabama mom, who drove through town with her 13-year-old daughter attached to the roof of the family’s van, because she didn’t have anything else to hold down a large cardboard box.
*The dad who chopped off his young daughter’s hair as a form of punishment.
*The Georgia parents who illegally gave kids tattoos in their own home.
To some, these parents’ egregious actions could be categorized, as “poor parenting.” Others would classify them as downright evil. You might be tempted to side with the latter, unless you compared them with:
*The Oregon dad who told police that he regularly used an electronic dog collar to shock his young children as a means of punishment… and entertainment.
*The Georgia father who knowingly poisoned his kids in an effort to score a wad of cash.
*The dad who tried to sell his daughter, so he could buy his way out of the slums.
*The drug addict dad, who begged a judge to release him from jail, so he could donate a kidney to his dying son, but fled to Mexico with his girlfriend instead of showing up to the hospital.
And then there’s Steve McClairin. The 36-year-old dad from Cleveland, Ohio, may be in a class all his own when it comes to poor parenting.
In fact, if you were to draw a line between poor parenting and inherently evil human beings, McClairin would be straddling the border of evil and deranged lunatic.
According to police, McClairin placed his seven-year-old physically challenged daughter in a dryer, shut the door, and turned it on.
Ohio prosecutors say the allegations leveled against McClairin are beyond horrific.
“There’s no explaining this type of activity, why any individual would place any human being or any animal or anything in a dryer is unexplainable and to a normal thinking person, there’s no explanation and obviously this man has issues,” said Mike O’Malley, part of the prosecution’s team.
Law enforcement got involved in the case when the girl told a teacher at her school that her father put her in the dryer. The school contacted children’s services and charges were filed.
According to the police report, the girl suffers from a condition that prevents her from growing. Officials say the girl, who is about three feet tall, admitted that her father placed her in the dryer on several occasions.
“If you’re capable of putting your child in a clothes dryer you’re probably capable of a lot of horrible things,” said O’Malley.
McClairin remains in jail on $250,000 bond.
Poor parenting… or just plain evil?