Yesterday's
Tennessean had a front page story about a
34-year old mother who hired a stripper for her 16 year old son's birthday party. A Davidson County jury indicted her for contributing to the deliquency of a minor, among other things.
Couple of things that struck me about this article .
1. Mom had to call around to several agencies to find one that would send a stripper to a 16-year old's birthday paryt
2. They paid the stripper (who goes by the stage name "Sassy") extra to fully strip. In fact, some of the teenage guys took up a collection at the party for this. This is actually what got them in trouble. Photos were taken and sent for development at a nearby drug store. The drugstore staff turned them over to the police. (As my good friend Leslie, who worked at a Walgreens in high school says, "If you're gonna take the naked pictures, it's time to go digital."
3. -Mom seems to think there's NOTHING wrong with this. Here are just a few of the things she said...
"It's a bunch of bull," Anette Pharris, 34, said yesterday afternoon in an interview at her east Nashville home. "I tried to do something special for my son. It didn't harm him."
From the family's front porch, which sits on a small street off Dickerson Pike near Hart Lane, her children have witnessed prostitutes with customers, people injecting drugs, smoking crack and doing other misdeeds. A naked woman was nothing to get upset about, Pharris said.
"Age is just a number," she said. "My son is very mature."
After nearly choking on my Rice Krispies laughing at some of the quotes in the article, I had to admit I felt it was really kind of sad. Sure, in the short term it seems like--hey, cool parent! But in the long run, there is not telling what kind of lack of moral example or leadership Mom is setting for her son. And the fact that there was apparently a house full of adults there, including someone that is referred to as "grandpa" and no one thought this was in any way a bad idea.
Of course, I will say this.
When I lived out in California, the high school I attended for one year was built around a central, outdoor courtyard. In fact, all the classrooms opened to outdoor hallways. One day during lunch, a "policeman" came to the school and began to do his show. Seems it was a young lady's birthday and her friends had hired a stripper for her to come during lunch time. The "officer" got his shirt off before he was escorted off by the principle and later got to take a ride downtown with a real police offer.
It's a strange world we live in...
posted by Michael Hickerson at 5/29/2005 02:30:00 PM |
|
