Serious Enough?

The sheriff said misdemeanor charges he planned to file against the Balloon Boy Father seemed “hardly serious enough” given the circumstances. He was checking with the FAA to see if there might be fitting federal charges, as I’m sure there are (risking an air catastrophe)? If the state child protective services scrutinize that household, they might come closer than the sheriff or the Feds to a consequence that addresses the unseemly nature of what occurred here.

There apparently are no Earthly laws that address the matter of conning people on several continents into worrying and praying for the safety of a small boy who was safe all along, except, perhaps, from the shenanigans and wrath of a mercurial, hyperactive, attention-seeking, narcissistic father. People seem to feel cheated that the boy wasn’t in the balloon and instead was hiding, even though, really, that’s what we prayed was the case. They feel cheated because, apparently, although he denies it, the boy’s father pulled a fast one, using his young sons to concoct a phony dramatic emergency for a publicity stunt that he hoped would further his TV career.

Fret not, those who prayed. The father may not have garnered quite the kind of attention he wanted in the long run, yet it may be the kind his family needs. If this stunt gets a child protection agency to look at parents who put their children up to lying on international television, holding them up for humiliation, driving them into hurricanes, having them make a bratty, foul-mouthed video for YouTube, then perhaps it was worth it. Perhaps it’s working out as well as it could have, given the circumstances. No one was physically injured, parents who probably need to be scrutinized are being scrutinized, a guy who probably thinks he’s smarter than everyone and that his needs matter more than anyone’s is finding out he isn’t and they don’t.

The family does need your prayers. Maybe the ordeal the parents allegedly cooked up for themselves ultimately will set the family on a better path — if it doesn’t tear them apart.