JASPER COUNTY, GA-- Have you seen the video of a Georgia principal trying to paddle a five-year-old? If not, you might be the only one. It's gotten more than two and a half million hits on facebook.
It seems the little tyke spit on one classmate and took a swing at another. Certainly punishable offenses, but watching the video, you can see the boy is terrorized at the threat of the two to three foot paddle. And the administrators involved do nothing to try and comfort him.
"I mean, he's five years old. Little kids do stupid little things like that," says Houstonian Kathy Hart, who admits she found the video hard to watch.
Helena Mendez, a mother of two, did, too. "A violent act shouldn't be replaced with a violent act," she says.
Wondering what kind of sadistic soul recorded and posted the awful event? It was the little boy's mom, Shana Marie Perez. She was allowed to be present but said she could do nothing to stop it. So like any good millennial with an iPhone, she did the next best thing-- she recorded it.
Perez claims the administrators told her if she didn't allow the spanking, her son Thomas would be suspended. And since he had already missed 18 days of school, she would be sent to jail for truancy.
"I really believe corporal punishment should be left to the parents and not the schools," says Maribel Alanis, who also found herself disturbed, watching the terrorized child scream, waiting for his beating.
For 60-year old Hart, it was more personal. She was paddled at school as a small child just like Thomas and has never forgotten it. "I'm not gonna say my life was ruined over it, but it hurt!" she says, tears welling in her eyes. "The yelling, and the screaming, and the 'Stop!!' and the mind stuff of it... I just think it's wrong. Just wrong."
Thomas' mother says she didn't step in out of fear. "I can't take care of my kids in jail," she explained on facebook.
True dat, Mama! But if you let folks beat and terrorize your kids right in front of you, you aren't taking very good care of them anyway.
