The 53-year-old father... a wealthy individual... said he encouraged them to ski and to eat a macrobiotic diet, avoiding processed and otherwise refined foods, out of a normal level of parental concern. But the mother of the teenagers and the prosecutor in the case painted a different picture, of constant pressure and taunting by the father of his daughters.
January 26, 2015
"An Italian father who forced his teenage daughters to ski competitively and eat a macrobiotic diet because he was concerned they were too fat..."
"... has been found guilty of abuse and sentenced to nine months in prison."
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33 comments:
The same court system that sent scientists to jail for not predicting an earthquake.
The Italian "justice" system makes the Queen of Hearts court look like the epitome of rationality.
Well, I was never sexually or physically abused, but I do suffer from anxiety, depression, low self-esteem and substance abuse, so I'm going to go with psychological abuse.
I always thought Richard Williams and Earl Woods seemed abusive, but at the same time I appreciate the fruits of their labors.
Joe Jackson is another one.
It certainly sounds ridiculous for him to be dragged to court over something like that, but there is a line between aggressive parenting and mental abuse.
The article is so bereft of facts I can't figure out just how bad this decision is. On its face it is absurd but I guess when you combine the toxic shards of a broken family with a criminal justice system that appears to be completely out of control, you get stuff like this. It would have been nice to know some basics such as: how old were the girls at the relevant time (it began at most 4 years ago, one is now an adult), how long did it go on, was it face-to-face or only on email/Facebook (cyberbullying?), did he simply offer to pay for ski trips and supply diet tips, or did he threaten them and withhold financial or other support, what was the mother doing about it all, etc etc?
As Tim Maguire says, "the same court system that sent scientists to jail for not predicting an earthquake."
The 53-year-old father, who has not been named in press reports...
Very troubling. Besides the nature of the crime, "psychological abuse" -- a very nebulous concept -- we have a man incarcerated for months and the press doesn't even know who he is. Have the court records been sealed? Is there some kind of Italian star chamber dealing out punishments to pushy health food fans?
Whenever someone eats "macrobiotic", I know they're clueless.
(Any medical/dietary thing invented by Germans in the 18th or 19th century is pretty much guaranteed to be completely BS.)
The court would have sentenced Todd Marinovich's father to death most likely....
What Owen said. What in God's name are the facts? Was the diet actually accepted by the court as being "abuse"? Or was it the pressure and taunting? Or was it something else? We don't have enough there to tell whether the macrobiotic diet (faddish and unproven vis a vis all it's claims to better health, but hardly abusive) was indeed part of the problem or just an irrelevant detail. And that's just a reporting fail.
I'm sick of acts of journalism who's goal is not to inform, but to inflame. Light illuminates, fire burns, but too much of the press nowadays seems to go for heat over light. And looking to torch a topic does no one any favors. What ever happened to tell the reader what you see, what you hear, what you feel, but never tell them what to think?
What a mess of a story. And I get told that Europeans get better news service than we Americans do... pah... that might be true for some stories, but it sure as hell isn't for this one.
Another reason for Italians not to have children. Childless couples will not be put in jail for the way they raise their children, so why risk it? Apparently the Italian justice system is about emotions rather than codes of law.
It's why I don't buy Italian manufacturing equipment. Me, "What are the tolerances on...?" Them, "Tolerances! Look how beautiful this machine is!"
Jack Nicklaus' Dad was normal.
Tiger Woods succeeded despite his Dad's insanity.
There's not enough in this article to show abuse. But I indee if the parents were still married what would have happened. Don't believe government's should criminalize disagreements between divorced parents.
More Italian Justice.
Kercher, 21, was found lying in a pool of blood with her throat slashed in the apartment she shared with Knox, a student from Seattle, after what prosecutors believe was a sex game gone wrong. After his DNA and fingerprints were found at the scene, Guede was arrested and has now exhausted his appeals.
Before his arrest, he told a friend Knox was not present at the murder, but then, during his first appeal, claimed he had been in the bathroom during the attack, emerging to hear Knox's voice and seeing an unidentified man leaving the scene.
The court is putting community limits on the Mosaic commandment to honor your father and mother. Good for the Judge. Parents with a mental illness can do harm under a cover of authority.
for once the father was a psycho, not the mother
"(Any medical/dietary thing invented by Germans in the 18th or 19th century is pretty much guaranteed to be completely BS.)"
I thought Macrobiotics was invented by a Japanese guy, Nyoichi Sakurazawa (aka Georges Ohsawa). If I'm wrong, I stand corrected, but it's what I thought.
But yeah, as far as BS goes, agreed:
http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/OTA/ota03.html#macrobiotic
I believe that if someone wants healthy, they can start by realizing that macrobiotics are good in that they do call for a lot of vegetables, but are low in fruit, low in calcium, low in vitamin D, low in protein, and just plain low in calories. So to call it "healthy" you'd need to deviate from it's proscriptions and balance things out. Which means, you're less being macrobiotic and more just "eating healthy".
But above all that, none of what the diet purports has any curative value for cancer (the biggest claim I've seen for going macrobiotic). And it's claims to be "preventative" of cancer need a lot more actual research behind it and a lot less "testimonial". As the saying goes, anecdote is not the singular form of data.
That's the problem with BS: If there's a grain of truth - and to be honest, moving to more veggies is a good idea - then people will perceive the whole to be truthful. It won't occur to proponents that having a grain of truth is not the same as having the whole of it, and a grain of truth misused can lead people astray.
lgv said @ 1/26/15, 12:22:
"...It's why I don't buy Italian manufacturing equipment. Me, "What are the tolerances on...?" Them, "Tolerances! Look how beautiful this machine is!"
Extremely funny!
"An Italian father who forced his teenage daughters to ski competitively and eat a macrobiotic diet because he was concerned they were too fat has been found guilty of abuse and sentenced to nine months in prison." ..... And if he had done nothing he would have been sentenced to nine months in prison because his parenting decisions promoted obesity in his children.
Eric the Fruit Bat said... [hush][hide comment]
Well, I was never sexually or physically abused, but I do suffer from anxiety, depression, low self-esteem and substance abuse, so I'm going to go with psychological abuse.
You may have some of them repressed memories, you know, like Roseanne Barr and Tom Arnold.That was an epidemic not so long ago. I think it came after country wide Satanic day care facilities . Since overshadowed by campus rape and white police killing black youth epidemics
If you want your kids to act out your fantasy of the good life, you have to be prepared to pay the price. Not you, your kids.
You may have some of them repressed memories...
Memory is infallible, particularly the repressed kind. That's how we know Satan invented daycare, and that alien beings from Zeta Reticuli are hybridizing their DNA with lonely middle class white women.
Italian machine tools - they make some nice stuff -
http://www.sigmaekkon.it/en/products.asp
Italians make nice cars, too.
How do you know the father was crazy ? Did they have tapes or letters or any other evidence?
After reading about the repressed memory hoax, which always involved the father, I am very suspicious of these stories.
Had he simply changed his name to Michelle Obama, he would have been hailed as a hero!
Italians love beauty. It is a quality that works out well when it comes to the design of cars, boats and towns. It is less of an asset when it comes to personal relationships.
We would really need pictures to judge the fairness of this verdict.
I would advise Alec Baldwin not to make any trips to Italy with his daughter.
But now that the precedent is established, let's see if the Italians go more generally after the imposing vegetarian and vegan parents.
"Experts say children subjected to psychological abuse sometimes face the same mental health challenges as children who are sexually or physically abused and can suffer from anxiety, depression, low self-esteem and substance abuse."
And sometimes they don't. Sometimes is such a wonderfully elastic concept.
It's a very rare parent who does not do something that creates psychological trauma for the child. Part of growing up is learning how to overcome the trauma.
Northern Italians are not the same as Southern Italians. Northern Italians make nice cars, nice machine tools, and nice firearms.
The father was the NON-CUSTODIAL parent! The girls didn't want to visit him because of his demands. He learned from Facebook that they were fat. How in the world could his alleged conduct warrant putting him in jail? If the judge thought his conduct was sufficiently egregious, then limit or end his contact with his daughters (which would have been extreme based on the few facts we're given, but at least would not have been insane).
"and can suffer from anxiety, depression, low self-esteem and substance abuse."
God help those girls !
I was listening to the husband and wife authors of The Triple Package, driving home today.
I wonder if they could have adjoining cells ?
ken in tx: "Northern Italians are not the same as Southern Italians."
A point the Northern Italians (as well as many of the "Island Italians") note often.
The Italians are also "ok" when it comes to aircraft design.
Just pray you never require their Close Air Support for your survival.
If you need an event planned at some random villa however, they are your guys.
Well, they and the Dutch.
"The Italians are also "ok" when it comes to aircraft design.
Just pray you never require their Close Air Support for your survival."
Drago,
That"a quite the comment considering it was an American pilot who snapped a tram cable killing everyone aboard by buzzing an Italian ski valley. I was there. It wasn't pretty. And our government quickly hustled him back home to avoid meaningful punishment.
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