October 21, 2009, - 11:28 am
USA Today “Parenting” Blogger: “I Took My 11-Yr-Old Son to Hooters for Publicity (& to Check His Sex Interest), So Should You”
Give Bob Elston the Larry Flynt-style “Fatherhood” award. Or give his eleven-year-old son leave to sue for malpractice . . . and pimping. The dude is competing with the Heene balloon boy family, but in the sleazebag department, he’s definitely got that father, Richard Heene, beat.
Hooters: Where to Implant Your 11-Year-Old for Sex Ed Lunch
In today’s USA Today, this “fatherhood” blogger and father of four has a lengthy op-ed bragging about what a great father he is because he took his eleven-year-old son to Hooters a/k/a “Skanks Servin’ Eats,” to gauge his son’s phase of sexual interest and development. Wow, congrats Bob. You’re a (tiny) step up from the proverbial “Porky’s”-style silver screen dad who takes his kid to a prostitute. Three cheers for you. Nauseating.
But, hey, it got Elston a lot of traffic to his heretofore anonymous blog and a big column in McPaper. Plus, Elston brags that he is just following in the footsteps of his own sleazy dad:
After a big victory in a youth football game recently, my parents and I took my 11-year-old son to Hooters for lunch. Though this was his first trip to Hooters, he knew from his friends exactly what the restaurant chain is famous for.
We were joined at the table by one of my son’s teammates and his dad. We were surprised to see a lot of families with kids eating at tables around us. We playfully introduced our waitress to our football players. She feigned being impressed with the boys sitting there without shoulder pads in oversized jerseys. I could tell that my son would rather have been at home playing on the Xbox than chatting with a woman much older than he is. His face turned even redder when his football coaches walked over and teased him about getting the waitress’ phone number.
Uh, looks like someone else wanted the waitress’ phone number and to oogle chicks in tight clothes bending over with food trays. Note there is no mother of this son mentioned anywhere in the piece. Gee, I wonder why.
As his dad, I thought of the Hooters outing as an opportunity to check on my own son’s development, or lack thereof, in a real world setting. My son is a fairly handsome boy with long hair, a calm and quiet demeanor, natural athletic ability, and self-confidence that helped win him the quarterback job on his football team. . . . As a parenting blogger, I thought it might be fun to craft this experience into a blog post that could attract readers and start a spirited discussion. We snapped a picture so that readers could see for themselves what the two 11-year-old boys and a Hooters waitress look like together. I didn’t want to let people get carried away with their own mental imagery.
“Parenting” blog? PUH-LEEZE. Using your son and pimping him out at Hooters so you’ll get publicity for your blog is not parenting. Not even close. This “father” is no different than the Gosselin family, the Octomom, and the Heene parents. And, uh, we don’t need to have a photograph of your son with low-class Hooters bimbos to “see it for ourselves.” I think we all know what Hooters waitresses look like. Hey, maybe I can get a pic of your son eating chicken wings . . . because otherwise, I’d have no idea what it looks like to see a kid eat.
And don’t tell me, as this scumbag, Elston does, that the Hooters girls are exposing less skin than on a beach or in many ads. The chicks in Playboy are showing as much skin as was shown on men in the movie “Borat.” So maybe “dear old dad” should treat his kiddie to a subscription. Because kids in America aren’t sexualized enough at age eleven. We need more of it. You need not be a prude to be sickened by this sad excuse for a dad. We know why people go to Hooters, and it ain’t for the “great wings.” Just like we know why people read Playboy (not for the articles).
In the three months since I started my parenting blog, the short Hooters post has drawn quadruple the number of hits per day as my next-most popular post. Parenting.com noticed the heated debate going on in its message boards and linked to it in an e-mailed newsletter, sending another flood of readers my way. It showed me the power of the Internet to strike a nerve and generate an instant controversy. Simply mention “11-year-old boy” and “Hooters” in the same sentence, the opposing sides will line up.
Hey, I pimped my son, and it worked! Now, I’m a temporary Internet star! Balloon Boy Dad, eat your heart out.
Oh, and how great! Daddy Bob Elston inspired other dads to be similarly “good dads”:
Another dad was inspired: “I took my son to Hooters for lunch today after seeing this post.”
This is getting boring. Time to step things up and take sonny to a strip club.
But what the most spirited critics fail to appreciate is that there is no magic formula to produce caring, generous and responsible kids. If there were, then parenting would not be fun. Instead, we all must be willing to take risks and make mistakes as we figure out how to shape our children into good little adults before sending them off into the world.
Hey, let’s take risks and accompany our kids to bondage and S&M clubs because there is “no magic forumula to produce caring, generous, and responsible kids.” Man, this guy is warped. Parenting is a job. It’s a responsibility. It’s not “fun.” Nor is it supposed to be. These dads looking for “parenting to be fun”–like this jerk–are the problem.
I learned from the way my parents raised me.
My dad bought me a Playboy magazine when I was a teenager — not to stoke my sexual fire but to open the topic for discussion. My mother, who was also at the Hooters lunch with us, feels strongly that an innocent lunch is a safe way to demystify sex for kids. “I don’t want my grandson to come unglued at the sight of a woman’s breasts,” she said.
Hmmm . . . then why not go all out and take him to a live sex show? I mean, after all, it will “open the topic for discussion” and this crone’s grandson, after being exposed, won’t “come unglued at the sight of a woman’s vagina.” And why wait until the old age of eleven? Why not nine or ten? Charming family. Descended from carnies? (With apologies to the hard-working people at our nation’s carnivals and fairs, for the comparison.)
It’s bad enough that in every corner of American pop culture, fathers are portrayed as losers, cheaters, and simply not around. Now, this is the new “fatherhood” and “parenting by dads”? Uh, no thanks. If the choice is between this and single mothers raising kids, we’re in heap big trouble.
And, indeed, we are.
Tags: 11, 11-year-old, Bob Elston, eleven, eleven-year-old, Heene family, Henne family, Hooters, Jon Gosselin, lunch, Richard Heene, Richard Henne, sex, Sex Ed, Skanks Servin' Eats, son, USA Today
there’s always been the jackass, super-male archetype of father. my uncle joe was very much like that. at a family get-together one summer, i remember him humiliating my cousin paul who was around 11 at the time, for refusing to take a sip of beer. he bellowed at my cousin,”DON’T YOU WANT TO BE A MAN?! DRINK THIS BEER!”. i vividly remember my uncle grabbing my cousin’s arm with one hand and jamming the tipped-up beer can into his mouth with the other. at this point, my dad intervened and pulled my beer-drenched cousin, humiliated and nearly in tears, away from him. as my dad was reading my uncle the riot act starting off with, “what the hell is wrong with you, joe?!”, my uncle was incredulous at my dad’s objections and laughing it off. he truly didn’t get it.
today, my cousin paul is an alcoholic. is it my uncle’s fault? who knows…
howard roark on October 21, 2009 at 12:06 pm