Posted on 05/29/2014 11:29:12 AM PDT by SJackson
A Georgia father has been arrested for making his teenage son carry a 23-pound landscape stone for miles as a military-style punishment, WXIA-TV reported.
Veteran Charlie Mayes, 40, is accused of making his 16-year-old son carry the landscaping stone for three miles at a time. The military father was arrested and charged with first-degree child cruelty on Tuesday.
Mayes told Douglassville police he made his son carry the stone as punishment for not doing his chores and schoolwork because he was watching too many videos. The 4-foot-2-inch tall teenager had to carry the paving stone for three miles from King's Highway to his home in the Fairways subdivision.
"This was done multiple times over a three-day period, sometimes as early as 3 o'clock in the morning," Police Sergeant Todd Garner told the station.
"In between that time, he was at home having to move rocks and stuff from one side of the back yard to the other and then being taken right back out to the same location and dropped off and made to walk back again," Garner said.
Police were altered to the boy's punishment by a driver delivering pizzas who saw him.
Mayes told Douglassville police he made his son carry the stone as punishment for not doing his chores and schoolwork because he was watching too many videos. The 4-foot-2-inch tall teenager had to carry the paving stone for three miles from King's Highway to his home in the Fairways subdivision.
"This was done multiple times over a three-day period, sometimes as early as 3 o'clock in the morning," Police Sergeant Todd Garner told the station.
"In between that time, he was at home having to move rocks and stuff from one side of the back yard to the other and then being taken right back out to the same location and dropped off and made to walk back again," Garner said.
Police were altered to the boy's punishment by a driver delivering pizzas who saw him.
A pizza delivery driver saw a boy carrying a stone and called the cops.
What else is missing from this story?
I have other comments but I’m just going to withhold them...as I’m reacting on the basis of this horribly-written article.
Hard work to accomplish a valuable or necessary task is one thing. It teaches discipline, the value of hard work, pride in accomplishment and gets rid of laziness and sloth.
On the other hand...
Obviously pointless hard labor, against normal times and hours, repeated in order to erase any sense of accomplishment or meaning, is psychological battery through physical exhaustion. It is deliberately dehumanizing, vicious, and meant to break the spirit. It is what is done to a prisoner or a slave by a guard or warden - not to a son by a father. Do that to your son, and you can kiss fatherhood goodbye forever. It crosses a line that cannot be crossed back - and should not be crossed back. This father deserves a wake up call for his brutality, and if he meant that brutality, then he deserves to lose his son.
I marched 100 miles with 27lb.s over four days in ‘91. ‘Course I didn’t have homework or chores to do at the time.
Guess the band director here is in deep do do. He has 8 to 12 teenagers, from 14-18 years old toting 40 pound contra tubas on their shoulders for hours a day. In the heat. In the rain. In the cold. In the dark. Doesn’t matter. One of them is my 15 year old…. for the second year.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2641583/Man-arrested-child-cruelty-punishing-teenage-son-making-carry-23-pound-paving-slab-miles.html
http://www.douglascountysentinel.com/news/article_cda80846-e52f-11e3-8318-0017a43b2370.html
I'm still not buying the kid was 4'2", either.
Interesting tidbit. Police have it on dashcam but no action taken. Pizza dude offers him a ride.
You could be correct about the “pointless” labor, though it’s used in the military and to some extent in teen boot camps, wilderness schools and military schools, and they’d disagree about the impact of discipline. Camps for troubled teens are controversial, but I’m not sure this father’s punishment is that bizarre, and certainly not criminal.
“And when you’re on your deathbed struggling for your last breath that may be their last words to you.”
Lol. A cruel statement and no, you don’t know boys.
Amazingly as it may seem boys actually appreciate most acts which raise the bar on their performance and behavior. As incredible as it sounds it is because they expect that they will have to provide for others in their lives rather than having the luxury of mooching off everyone they can.
Honor vs. selfishness.
The selfish dads just give their sons whatever they want, avoiding challenge at any cost.
Sign of the times.
No thought given to the child’s development, judgment, character or responsibility. The only concern is that it wasn’t pleasurable for him.
Psst, boys who are brought up expecting everything to go their way because their life should be easy and they should get what they want, when they want it, as they want it usually wind up in prison without anything.
Life’s lessons are best learned young.
Whenever my sons veered from the straight & narrow, all it took was: "if you don't straighten up, Mom's coming with us on vacation next year!"
Works like a charm. When Mom joins us, there's no fun stuff like camping, canyoneering, fishing, rappelling, horseback riding, etc.
LOL
You got off easy heh.
Stuff adds up in a hurry. I don’t think this style of punishment is so bad.
Three miles at a time with a 23 pound stone does not sound that unreasonable for a fit 16 year old. Until you get to the 4’2’ part, that is.
Yeah, well over 90% of the male prison population grew up without dad around so your musings on this issue serve only to destroy lives.
Best stay out of it sister.
Thanks for the reminder. I got a day's worth of bucking hay at my uncle's farm when I was 16. I learned that was not the life for me.
And, uphill, both ways!
I still get a bit teary with pride in that kid when I see that video. Guts personified!
My 16 yr stepson is required to haul the horse manure buggy (1/3 cubic yard Rubbermaid 2 wheel cart) 1/4 mile to the waste pile. We have 23 horses and it takes about 3 loads to haul it all off.
We also have 2 other piles that are only about 450 feet from the barn but he is not allowed to dump there. Why, you may ask? Because when he dumps the cart he chooses to not throw the freshly dumped pile on top of the large pile, so he just keeps dumping until the whole pen is covered with little wheel barrow piles of crap. he is given the choice to change but never does. We also allow him to haul as big or as small of a load has he wants but he chooses to really heap it on, but again his choice...
When I was 11 I had my first job which included the task of emptying a 32’ truck of a shipment of fryolator grease -one 40-lb case at a time. If I could do it I would do it because it needed to be done and I believed nothing could stop me.
Young boys are full of spit and vinegar which needs a proper, purposeful outlet as they develop.
One of those visits included a stop at a juvenile detention center. We arrived about five minutes before the "Board of Education" was administered to an uncooperative young lad. I can still hear the "THWACK" to this day.
Four hours at that place was an eye-opener.
My dad got us up between 3-4 AM to do chores, and that was when we weren’t in trouble. We also got to load and unload 50# bags of feed and I didn’t weigh 100 pounds soaking wet at the time. Moving hay bales, livestock feed, building fence, you name it and that was regular tasks. My dad was not sexist either, my sister and I got to do all the fun stuff my brothers did. It was called growing up on a ranch and it did me no harm.
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