babies getting married in nc

as some of you know, i © good morning america and now that i once again live by myself i watch it EVERY morning. one might call my mix of waking up to NPR, watching GMA until i leave the house and then NPRing it all the way to work a bit of a contradiction, but i don't care. and while we're talking NPR, GOD do i miss KUT in austin! the NPR station in richmond is so old school. but i digress...

so last week, there was this story on GMA about a 16-year-old girl in north carolina who married her 40-year-old track coach. there are so many things wrong with this scenario, i don't even know where to begin. it's just this kind of thing that makes me never want to have children. not that i think my kids will end up like this poor girl (because they would never be so foolish), it's just that i'm afraid they would be surrounded by over-indulged little brats like little miss windy from nc.

which leads me to my first point. one of the characteristics of members of this unfortunate teen's generation is that they don't know the meaning of "no." this lovely trait has reared its ugly head a bunch in my life in recent years. "kids these days" (cracks me up that i'm almost old enough to say that) have never been told no in their lives and, therefore, do not take criticism well. try giving a performance review to an individual who has never been told they were anything less than absolutely wonderful. they make excuses, they deny and they try to talk their way out of it. which is exactly what miss windy did. she wasn't used to not getting her way and so she made her parents believe that they had no choice but to sign the consent forms and let her marry mr. track coach.

my second point is, these parents are nuts. they claim to have had access to incriminating emails and text messages and still both the school and the local authorities wouldn't listen? i don't buy it. i don't think 2 AM text messages fall into what anyone would call a healthy student-teacher relationship. i'm gonna have to call bullshit on that one. you had all the evidence you needed to at the very least get the teacher fired and you screwed it up. i don't feel sorry for you.

my third point is, if all else fails remove your child from the situation. i understand that you may actually have to move the whole family out of coastal north carolina (trust me, you'll live) or ship your daughter off to boarding school, but i'm sure in the long run you'll find it worth the cost and trouble. you might have to trouble yourself to monitor your child very closely or send her to therapy or alert her new school of this issue or, i don't know, TAKE AWAY ALL CELL PHONE AND EMAIL PRIVILEGES, but again, you'll all live.

so what have we learned from this charade? TELL YOUR CHILDREN NO, PEOPLE! at the very least, it will prepare them for the real world that's full of disappointment and on a good day it'll prevent your teenage daughter from running away with a man that's old enough to be her father.

her father's response to the impending nuptials was "signing those consent forms was the hardest thing i did in my whole life." brace yourself, pops. it may be the hardest thing that you've done thus far, but i bet throwing her a baby shower 6 months from now will be harder. i'd put $50 on it.