Nick Crews (pictured left, Photo: SWNS) has become a cult hero and a viral sensation- particularly in Great Britain. Why? Because of a leaked email he sent to his kids explaining just how (brutally) disappointed he is with them. It starts with "Dear All Three" and goes pretty downhill from there.
With last evening's crop of whinges and tidings of more rotten news for which you seem to treat your mother like a cess-pit, I feel it is time to come off my perch.
It is obvious that none of you has the faintest notion of the bitter disappointment each of you has in your own way dished out to us. We are seeing the miserable death throes of the fourth of your collective marriages at the same time we see the advent of a fifth.
We are constantly regaled with chapter and verse of the happy, successful lives of the families of our friends and relatives and being asked of news of our own children and grandchildren. I wonder if you realize how we feel — we have nothing to say which reflects any credit on you or us…
I can now tell you that I for one, and I sense Mum feels the same, have had enough of being forced to live through the never-ending bad dream of our children's underachievement and domestic ineptitudes......I am bitterly, bitterly disappointed.
Dad
Ouch. You can read the rest here. While Crews may be taking shots at his own kids, people are celebrating him as someone with the guts to stand up to his own overprivileged slackers, something that "just happens to be a burning subtext to Europe's monumental blahs."
Are you with or against Crews? While I think it is tough to say one way or the other without good context of the children, I do feel like I know a few too many people my own age with a false sense of entitlement.
Via The Week
Wish more parents would follow his example.
At some point everyone makes a mess of their lives, to a greater or lesser degree. EVERYONE. Sometimes things just happen to push you off track. Sometimes you realise you don't like the path you're on and decide to make a detour. We all make bad choices, some more than others. That's life.
I don't see the father coming up with any advice for his 'disappointing' children. His 'don't speak to us until you're better people' attitude is not helpful, it's a simple threat, no more than that. Where's the unconditional love for your children in his words? 'Come back when you're better people' is not tough love, it's not love at all.
Maybe the kids aren't fulfilling their potential, but who is to say what that potential is? They live their own lives, and they can live them as they want. Most people do okay in the end. Doing okay should be enough for a parent - not everyone can get to the top of the tree. Not everyone wants to be there.
If the man's kids are in a bad place I hope it works out for them, but perhaps what they need is advice and guidance, not a closed door from a father whose disappointment, and the way it's expressed, speaks volumes about the kind of man he is.
We really don't know enough about the family history and dynamics to judge. Either scenario is plausible.
Rotten kids.
To the dad:
If you're going to do something like this, raise your kids right the first time. You only get to do it once. You are a horrible father. Even if there's nothing good to say to your friends about your kids, you don't just lament that you have such sucky kids. They're your kids. You raised them the way they are, so consider yourself a disappointment.
Then it's just ficking funny.