Letter: Column an ‘unintelligent rant,’ writer says

Talk about it

To the editor,

I hold you responsible for allowing Mrs. Corcoran an outlet for her hateful and unintelligent rant written in her Oct. 6 diatribe called “Too Many Kids Lack Discipline.” If this is an example of your publication’s writing standards, I should stop my subscription. Your job is to edit material before it goes to print. You either ignored your duties during this edition, or agree with your staff columnist.

Many of us have encountered children that behave unruly and in need of attention. It is unfortunate to watch these outbursts, when youngsters can’t communicate or control their feelings. Many children act out to test parental boundaries in public places. Her response to being disturbed by a child’s misbehavior left me dumbfounded by the fact that the column made it to print.

Mrs. Corcoran’s reaction to the situation she describes in her column was improper and deplorable. She seems to believe she was successful in correcting a 2 year old child’s behavior by a verbal attack. It is more likely that she scared the child with her bullying, thereby creating more problems down the road for those blessed teachers she speaks of. Instead of showing neighborly support, Mrs. Corcoran chose to make as big a rant as the 2 year old.

On top of this display of outright bullying, Mrs. Corcoran describes the child’s physical appearance with disdain. This is another indication of her hateful and condescending attitude and biased judging of others. The references made, regarding the weight of the child, were deplorable and had no relevance to the behavior witnessed. I would like to shake my finger at Mrs. Corcoran and say, “Stop it!’ but I don’t suppose it would be any more effective than it was with the 2 year old.

As for the two women, commenting on their employment and marital status is of no relevance to the issue of good parenting. Nor are their ages or marital status an indicator of anything other than your warped sense of right and wrong. It may have been wise for the adults to remove the child from the restaurant and gain control of the situation. However, their physical appearance is a non-factor and the comments made about how they looked were irrelevant.

This column sounded like a town gossip that couldn’t resist adding her two cents worth of hate for people different then herself. It is obvious that this family needed help with parenting skills. There are countless ways that one can offer support and kindness in such situations. Public criticism is not an effective way to instill better parenting.

If Mrs. Corcoran talked to the teachers that have to deal with children who get physically and verbally abused, she might get an education on why bullying is not an acceptable form of discipline. Educators do not promote physical abuse and domination in teaching parenting or in disciplining children.

I did agree with one part of this column: there are people with no common sense who walk among us. Sadly, it seems that we have someone with no common sense writing for our Town Pages.

Shannon Allen,

Rosemount

Tags: rosemount, letters, opinion