Because we’ve had such a rash of sterling examples of parenthood this year, I am announcing the first-ever Fairly Odd Mother’s Slightly Off Parents of the Year awards.
I’ll count them down, in order of boneheadedness:
No. 5: Jackie Denise Knott, 37, of Albertville, right here in Alabama, will be receiving the “Well, Officer, It Was Held Down With a Hangar” award. Knott made national news in October after she was charged with endangering the welfare of a child. Her crime? She drove with her 13-year-old daughter in a cardboard box on top of her van because she was worried the box would blow off. The box, it seemed, was too big to fit inside the van.
Knott allegedly told police that she thought it was safe because she had “secured” the box to the roof with a metal coat hangar before placing her daughter inside.
As a fairly normal, if odd, parent, I see a couple of things wrong with this scenario. The first is the fact that the mother did not seem to realize a handy little trait of cardboard boxes: They are COLLAPSIBLE. Children? Not so much.
And then there’s the hangar. Hmmm. Wonder how much thought Knott gave this scenario. She used the weight of her child to hold down the precious box, then secured her daughter with a hangar. Here’s a tip from Joan Crawford’s Mommie Dearest: “No more wire hangars — ever!”
No. 4 on the list is Octo-Mom Nadya Suleman, who gets the “That’s Two Months of My Life I’ll Never Get Back” award for taking up all that air time and magazine space when she gave birth to octuplets when she already had six children. Discussions of whether Suleman should have had eight children out of wedlock seemed endless but one thing seems sure: Once her fame waned, she was left home caring for 14 children with no paparazzi around to run out and pick up diapers.
Which brings us to No. 3 on our list: Jon and Kate Gosselin. The Gosselins receive the “Which Parent is Worst?” award for publicly playing out their divorce and continuing to put their children in the spotlight. Kate had been known to say the children loved being on television and actually missed the camera crews when they left (Uh-huh. Who was going to read them their bedtime stories now?) Jon initially agreed but put the brakes on when his name was removed from their “Jon and Kate Plus 8” show. Both are great competitors and are deserving of being named worst parent, but Kate gets the edge just because I hate that freaky wedge haircut of hers.
Well? As judge, I get some discretion.
No. 2: Richard Heene gets the “Throw Your Kid in Front of a Bus for Fame” award after he planned a hoax in an effort to become a reality TV star. After alerting police that his son Falcon was inside an experimental balloon that had become untethered and floated away, Heene was outed when his own son told audiences on national TV, “We did it for the show.”
Heene ended up with his fame, although not the kind he might have wanted, and his son Falcon ended up throwing up on two television shows, apparently from the stress of lying to help his dad attain his dreams. Heene gets extra bad-parenting points for being a complete bonehead — and for naming his kid “Falcon.”
The No. 1 parent on the list this year is Tiger Woods. Were there other adulterers? Sure. But none with as much ambition as our Cheatah, er, Tiger.
Woods gets top prize because of the sheer number of his conquests — 14 at last count. With all those golf tournaments on various continents plus that many women to please, I can’t imagine when he finds time for a good game of Candyland with the kids. On the plus side, at least the kids are learning to count.
Well, that wraps up the awards for this year.
Check back in 2010, when I’m sure we’ll have a whole new crop of outstanding parents.
Kelly Kazek
First-ever Slightly Off Parents awards
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