Do bad dads deserve a second or third chance?

Perhaps it’s unfair to call Charlie Sheen a bad dad.  I do not know the man and his parenting style could be very healthy and sound.    Though he is the father to four children, (6, 5 and a pair of 2 year old twins) to two mothers, he’s certainly not acting like a ‘dad’.

It certainly would be easy to ‘pile on’ to somebody who is self obsessed, destructive and a drug addict.  Sheen is a celebrity who has enormous wealth and status.  Celebrities and athletes often get a pass on behavior that would otherwise land common people in jail or have other privileges taken away.

Did the public ask anything special or extraordinary of Sheen?  No.  The public really didn’t ask anything of Sheen except to entertain us.  The ratings for Two and a Half Men are up 2% over last year and he’s one of the highest paid celebrities on television.  I’ve never seen the show, but I understand that the character he portrays is a playboy type character that drinks a lot and is quite aloof.

In other words it’s really lowest common denominator.  I remember in junior high school when some of the coolest kids also happened to be the stupidest ones.  There were a couple of the really popular kids who would constantly get F’s and they would then brag about it.  For some odd reason in school culture those idiot kids received a sort of respect at the school for being so damn dumb.

Sheen is certainly not a role model but he is a father.    I hope he pulls it together for the sake of his four kids, because they need a dad and not a celebrity.