The Youtube "Angry" Catholic Mom

Due to some naughty words...and possibly bad acting...viewer discretion is advised for this Youtube clip.

Let me begin by saying I find the clip a bit suspect. The people don't talk naturally...and it's awfully convenient that the video just happens to start rolling and stop rolling where it does. But who knows.
A quick look at the largely insipid and often vulgar comments to the video suggests that most of the people who feel like making a response see it (if it is true) as a sign of the irrationality and belligerence of the faithful. A couple of the video responses encourage the kid to stay true to his athiesm and offer him advice as to how to formulate sound athiest arguments in defense of his beliefs (interesting that they feel the need to explain to him why he believes what he believes).

Maybe this video shows an abusive or dysfunctional household. I have no idea what this woman is like when her son isn't denying his faith to her face (if these people are even for real). I also don't know that I would point to this dialogue as a model for how to persuade your child to stay in the fold. The "No Christmas presents for you" argument sounds a bit like the family might have gotten itself derailed by materialism, and sounds a bit infantilizing. That being said, I don't think it would be wrong for a parent to blow up over something like this. While people like the warm and squishy idea of nonconfrontational dialogue, I think that in our personal lives, we often interpret a lack of yelling as apathy rather than reason. In other words, a controlled, occasional outburst of yelling when something really upsets you means you actually care about the issue. A cold, dispassionate response can come off as a lack of interest (and I would expect this could be particularly so in the case of a teen).

My first suspicion is that the typical teenage son who comes home and says he doesn't believe in God is really just looking for attention...and this one got sort of what he wanted. He wanted to get his parents to look at him by hitting them in a vulnerable point. But his effort might have failed. You'll notice that the father figure seems to be sitting on the fringes of this very short clip. Is it any coincidence that this confused teen has a hard time accepting the existence of the Father when his own father is so aloof? Indeed, the father in this video (and I'm assuming it's a father...it could be Uncle Bob or the nutty and intrusive next door neighbor for all I know) seems a particularly...shall we say...earthy figure...but, more importantly, he seems barely interested. Watching the clip a second time, I can't even see the mother for a large chunk of it because the heavyset father has blocked her from view. The voice of faith, in this instance, is a disembodied, somewhat shrewish, female voice. You'll also notice that the father never really looks at his son. He takes a swig of something to drink, but appears to be vapidly staring off in the distance. He gives what is maybe a passing glance to the boy as he sits down...and never fully faces the kid until the mother has swung her son around in the chair and is screaming in his face. That is, he never gives a long stare in his son's direction until the son's back is to him. The father figure is really only watching the spectacle and not so much looking at his son. (Who also appears to be wearing sunglasses...as if he were "blind.")

So really, what bothers me about this video is not a mother's frustration at her son being a stupid kid...it's the father's conspicuous lack of action.

Sure, the father might provide for the kid...give him a nice house, lots of food, and all those Christmas presents...but he doesn't respond to him on a personal level. If the Father were just a provider, He would essentially be a non-entity. That is why the Father sent His Son...so that we would know He wasn't just a vapid, distracted force in the universe that causes trees to grow and clouds to rain, but a real person who loves us each on a personal level...because that is what our hearts really hunger for in the end.

Comments

[Lindsay]

My new productive studying rules say I have to get back to reading rhetoric now, but I came away from that video with two questions. First, who's filming? That seemed kind of hidden cameralike to me. Second, why doesn't that kid look bothered at all that someone is yelling in his face? Atheists, permanent or temporary, are capable of reacting.

[PeterTerp]

Yeah, I'm very skeptical that this is for real. The whole thing could be staged, or it could even be a prank the kids were playing on their mom.
On the other hand, maybe it all seems like bad acting because that's precisely what happens in our little personal, domestic family dramas. Whether it is staged or not, everyone really is playing a part in this microcosmic theatrum mundi.

And it would make sense that the kid doesn't react: 1) the whole thing is a teenage attempt to act too cool for school, so if he did react, his cool kid facade would break 2) he could just take after his completely imperturbable father sitting next to him, 3) he's trying to make it look like he doesn't care about not getting the latest iPod this year in order to make it look like he has transcended his mother's petty, materialistic and superstitious existence.

There's a very old children book called "I Don't Care Said Pierre" where the young boy professes complete disinterest in everything that everyone else thinks is important... until he ends up getting eaten by a lion.