Lessons of Cruelty

Hitting dad on the head with a hammer is a bad idea. It doesn't matter if you think as 58-year-old Jayantibhai Patel did that he thought it was the only way to get his 81-year-old dad into a nursing home. Repeat: it's a bad idea. Don't do it. Talking mean bad; hitting worser.

It's not the only bad idea involving cruelty between parent and child — and violence is usually frowned upon for good reason. And, no, it is not enough to rationalize or plead before a judge that you needed to be Cruel to be Kind:



Not that cruelty can't be enjoyable to watch (although in real life consequences have to be understood before they are realized. Currently on Broadway is a display of son turning on father. Intriguingly, fathers John Lithgow and Patrick Wilson are the actors in Arthur Miller's "All My Sons," although their personal experience is influenced by and influences the resonance that they bring to lines such as:

“There’s nothing I wouldn’t forgive him, because he’s my son.”

and

“I know you’re no worse than other men, but I thought you were better. I never saw you as a man. I saw you as my father.”