Early Enrichment Is Very Important...
Posted: Fri Jan 10, 2014 6:52 pm
Mother, age 16, of cussing toddler in 'thug' video defends son: kids swear, get over it
(CNN) -- The mother of an Omaha toddler is defending her son after he unleashed a slew of obscenities in an online video that has gone viral.
In the video, the diapered boy is taunted and cursed at by adults, who coax him into using crude words.
The African-American toddler knocks down a chair and responds to some of the comments with a middle-finger salute.
"Shut up, bitch," he says in one of the responses.
The adults chuckle, prompting him to unleash more obscenities at them.
Despite the video, he's not an anomaly, according to his mother.
"He had a clean diaper, the house was clean and like they said, kids curse, every kid does it,"[She is so right; I've yet to meet a toddler who didn't know at least several verses of Barnacle Bill the Sailor...] the mother told CNN affiliate KETV in an exclusive interview. CNN does not identify juveniles in such stories. The mother is 16.
"He's a smart little boy. All that cussing that he did, he doesn't do that,"[So the video's a fake?] she said. "Somebody told him to do that. My son doesn't do that. I don't allow it."
She said a friend of her brother filmed the video while she was in another room.
"He was wrong for doing that ... posting the video up and getting us into this situation,"[Yeah, clearly that's the problem here...] she said. "Everybody that thinks I'm a bad mother, I'm not. I'm a good mother to my son. I teach him a lot. He's very smart."
The police union in Omaha, Nebraska, posted the clip on its website to highlight what it called the "cycle of violence and thuggery" the community faces.
The Omaha Police Officers' Association is under fire from the city's police chief, the ACLU and at least one community leader. They say the move needlessly antagonizes minority communities, which make up about a quarter of Omaha's 409,000 residents.
Sgt. John Wells, the union's president, said the video was "disturbing" and "offensive."
"The focus here isn't on any particular ethnic group. The focus here is on the troubling behavior toward this child," Wells said. "This behavior is going to potentially lead this child down a path that is completely unhealthy."
