Ugh

I know I'm not usually all that serious on this blog, but I was outraged back in February by the Chris Brown/Rihanna incident. This morning, Chris Brown posted an apology video hoping that he could be seen as a role model again. The whole situation left me a little discombobulated: the support he got from other celebrities, how quickly she reunited with him after the incident, and his lack of visible remorse all left me scratching my head. This confusion was not eased when I got to school. One of my kids asked a questions about it and so we talked about it for a few minutes and tried to make sense of the whole thing. About 90% of my class were huge Chris Brown fans and while most of them agreed that he had made a mistake, I had a couple of male children who told me that they were glad that he was smacking Rihanna around because she had it coming for talking back to him. We discussed why it was wrong and what could have been done to have a better outcome. That situation has stuck in my memory and has challenged me on many occasions. Why do celebrities have as much influence as they do? Is it a lack of parenting? Teaching? Lack of spiritual guidance? His sentence was 5 years probation and some community service. How do we teach our children (males especially) to respect each other when they see their favorite singers, athletes, and actors behaving badly and having next to no consequences for their behavior? I don't have a solution, just needed an outlet to vent.