Parents of America: Your child might be a junior douchecanoe.

I really didn't intend to write another PSA, but I was outraged by those junior douchecanoes that were picking on that bus monitor, Karen Klein.

In my post about the proper uses of social media (hint: placenta is not one of them) I said that I don't really care how you're raising your kid as long as it's not torturing/maiming animals or other human beings or that you're not torturing/maiming it. Although those kids weren't physically harming Karen Klein, the things they said to her were some of the worst emotional abuse I've ever heard, especially from a child.

When I was growing up I saw a lot of my friends' parents attempt to be their child's friend instead of being their parent. My parents were not my friends. My parents were parents. Don't get me wrong, I had fun with them. My mom played Donkey Kong with us (she was awesome at it) and my dad was always willing to make us laugh with his Kermit the Frog and Marvin the Martian voices. We had tickle wars (which inevitably ceased due to my high-pitched screaming or someone getting seriously injured), went camping (until we discovered how freaking awesome hotels are), and my childhood was pretty fantastic.

None of this means that I didn't have an extremely healthy fear of my parents. I'm 24 years old and I'm still terrified of them. And that's probably why I've never been arrested. Yet. (Just kidding, Mom & Dad!)

My point here is that if my parents ever found out that I had behaved the way those kids on the bus did, I probably would have been shipped off to military school. Sometimes I was a real asshole to my parents and my brother (my preteen years were not particularly kind to any of us), but I never would have been an asshole to Karen Klein who's just trying to do her job and make a living.

I know some parents will try to excuse their child's lack of discipline by saying that it's really hard because both mom and dad have to work. Tough shit, parents! You decided to have a kid. Both of my parents worked too, and that doesn't mean I had free rein to run around terrorizing the neighborhood. Are you aware that some kids in Florida set another kid on FIRE because of a dispute over $40?

Stop being your kid's friend. They have friends. Friends that will try to convince them that setting someone on fire is a totally legitimate thing to do. You need to be the parent that teaches them that emotionally abusing people and/or setting them on fire is wrong. If you think their fragile little minds can't handle being disciplined, just think the kind of damage that will be done to their minds when they inevitably end up in prison for disembowling someone over the last box of Twinkies at the grocery store.

There's currently a fundraiser going on to send Karen Klein on a vacation. She only earns about $15,000 per year as a bus monitor and they were trying to raise $5,000. Amazingly, they've raised over $495,000 so far. There's still 29 days left in the campaign, so if you'd like to contribute you can do so here. The money certainly won't erase the abuse she's suffered at the hands of these little assholes, but it helps. Maybe she'll be able to retire!