Hopefully he won't go out drinking and driving just to spite her.

Hey, it might work! That teacher who found his son smoking pot in the backyard with his 15 year old friends sold his Guitar Hero 3 game on ebay for like $9,000+ dollars.

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And i hope parents that think this is responsible parenting..... i better not finish that threat lest i get charged with terroristic threats.

When will parents get it through their heads, PEOPLE USE DRUGS. Instead of trying to punish them for perfectly normal behavior maybe they should be more concerned about informing them to do it responsibly.

I hope karma pays these parents 10 fold that do this to their kids. Not to mention they're most likely hypocrites that did drugs at that age in the first place.

(Alcohol is a drug before some says this wasn't over drugs.)

@darkened: Not to argue, but I wouldn't consider underage drinking "normal" behavior. Yep, kids do it, but the mom had a rule: no alcohol in the car. She found it, so she took action, and I don't see what's so wrong with that.

The kid (or the friend who left the alcohol) may keep drinking, but he certainly won't be stupid enough to keep alcohol in his car anymore. It's blissful ignorance on the mom's part, and it doesn't strike at the heart of the matter, but he broke a rule and now he has to deal with the consequences.

@darkened:

That's crap.

Selling the kid's car because he had a bottle of wine in his room? That's harsh.

Selling the kid's car because he had a bottle of liquor IN THE CAR? Not a problem.

He's a freshman, which implies that he obtained the alcohol illegally. The liquor is in the car, which implies that he may have been considering drinking and driving.

How do you know what they did or did not discuss? Perhaps his parents warned him of this. Perhaps they set up terms and conditions. They bought the car, not him. They own the car. They can do whatever they want with the car.

Perhaps you'd be happier if he'd gotten wasted and taken out a family of four?

@darkened:

This is also on digg and she said she had two rules when he drove the car and 1 was no booze in the car. This has nothing to do with drugs! It has to do with him being disrespectful and not following his mother's rules while driving her car..

@darkened: Did you read the article?

The last thing I want to see is some kid (or anybody for that matter) driving next to me while sipping on their pint of Canadian Club on US 131. Go Mom, I hope that kid doesn't see a single dime from the car's profit either.

Here's the thing...now when prospective employers put his name in a search engine, this is what will most likely come up. Yes, the ad is funny, and she probably didn't think it would be so popular, but is pubically humiliating your kid the best way to go about something?

Hey kid, buy your own car. You're a freshman in college.

The punishment definitely fit the crime. For every person who says 'that's terrible, the kid should be given a break' there's someone who's been killed by a drunk driver. It's a very serious thing.

@svreader: Er...publically. Worst typo ever?

@quagmire0: Drunk drivers should rot in hell, but I wonder if he was just hiding it there on a visit home, knowing she would search his room? He shouldn't have had it anyways, as he was underage, but I think his mom's solution was a bit short-sighted in the internet age.

@darkened:

1) She bought the car, she makes the rules.

2) Having an open container in your car is a real good way to get arrested.

3) He may have been drinking and driving, which is a real good way to kill somebody.

What does this all add up to? She doesn't owe him jack shit. Maybe, if she's feeling generous, she can use some of the money she got from selling the car and buy him a nice bus pass.

@svreader: You have a good point there. I guess the kid will just have to hope that he finds potential employers who don't find the story, or have enough faith in him to believe that he learned his lesson. I think he wouldn't have appeared on national television if he wasn't enjoying the publicity at least a little bit, though. Or something.

Also, pubic humiliation is not something I don't think anybody should experience. Ever.

You guys really need to post the story up much faster... This is old news, from yesterday or 2 days ago or something.

But yes it happened in Iowa, and I live in Iowa... So this is our 1 min. of fame since the caucuses are now over...

Did the kid himself go on Good Morning America? If so, internet humiliation shouldn't be much of a hit to him.

@pengie: I mean "is something I think no one should experience." Wow.

@darkened: Sorry, but most kids don't have the concept of responsibility down at this age. They may act responsibly, but that doesn't mean that they necessarily understand the consequences of acting irresponsibly with alcohol and drugs.

I know this. My parents divorced, I was the responsible "man of the house" when I was a teenager. My Mom had the same attitude you do. I hung out with friends who's parents had the same attitude you do (hey, it was the seventies, there were a lot of hippie parents back then.) After I hit bottom and managed to live, the next order of business - while I was rebuilding my life - was attending a lot of friends funerals.

Sorry but the hippie "Everyone does drugs, just do it responsibly" argument died in the 1980's. Children can't handle the responsibility of drugs and alcohol. They impair their ability to remain responsible.

Bravo to this mom, who drew a line and stuck with it.

If 'mercans weren's so assininely stupid WRT drinking, stupid things like that wouldn't happen. If you hide booze from kids, OF COURSE they gonna want some!!!

I'm french, and when I was 12, my parents said nothing at all when I boozed-up real good for once. The ensuing hangover made sure I never boozed-up again in the more than 30 years that have elapsed since.

Working and buying your own car ftw.

@Jean Naimard: French parents letting their French kids get drunk in France, really doesn't have anything to do with how this woman punished her son.

@Jean Naimard: Sorry, sounds to me like you're STILL twelve.

@pengie: I think we both need the weekend to be here!

Selling the car would be punishment enough. Airing this out in public and humiliating the son (now on national TV) is going too far.

And we wonder why our kids snap and go on a shooting rampage.

I just wanted to say that Oh well, he got to appear on Good Morning America. That's like YouTube for boomers. is funny because it's true. So so true.

@sled_dog: That is one the dumbest things posted on this site. Don't be a moron.

@svreader: That or an edit option! :)

@darkened:
People may use drugs, and alcohol, but that isn't "perfectly normal behavior." Perfectly normal behavior would be, oh, playing music in the car. Drugs and alcohol are not legal substances in this case (the youth was 19, 2 years underage to have it, even it was still sealed.)

A good parent DOES take action on these issues. Fights over hairstyle and clothing are often unnecessary. But taking a stand over drugs and underage drinking? That is when we DO need parents to be parents.

Imagine, incidentally, if the person to find the alcohol had been a policeman. It wouldn't matter if the drink was belonged to a passenger, the kid would be the one nailed with Minor in Possession.

That bitch stole my mom's title!

@smitty1123: Not drinking and driving FTW

@Jean Naimard:
You're lucky you didn't have some major damage. Getting 'boozed up' when you're still developing and growing could have really caused some problems.

At the same time, I do agree that parents should show how to drink responsibility and offer the children the chance to learn appropriately. A glass of wine at dinner (perhaps watered, depending on the child's age) is acceptable. Three bourbon and cokes and a bag of chips is not.

Lets see. He's 19 which is underage for drinking BUT this also means he's an adult and responsible for himself. His Mom bought the car so I'm assuming that she holds title AND pays for the insurance. She probably also pays for him to go to school while he lives at home.

From what I can see he broke the one rule she set for him to have a car. If he doesn't like the rules he can move his behind out and take care of himself. It doesn't matter if the alcohol wasn't his: he should NEVER have allowed it in the car in the first place.

If my kids did something like this: I'd sell the car too.

Kudos to this mom for being a real mom. That's tough love, and we need more of it in this world spiraling out of control. KUDOS!!!

If the car was in her name, she's within her rights to sell it out from under him.

I, however, likely would have called the police... then sold the car.

"Sorry, Jr., obviously my parenting wasn't enough for you -- welcome to adulthood. These gentlemen have some nice bracelets for you."

@esthermofet: So giving your child a criminal record is your idea of a good thing?

I think the story is just a ploy to sell the car at a higher price.

@catskyfire: Yeah, this happened to some kids in my high school way back when and they all got hit with it because they were all underage and there was a bottle of booze in the car. It was one of theirs and I think one of them had been drinking but it affected them all.

@catskyfire: And that was in regards to your imagine a policeman finding it comment, not the growth-stunting one!

PS My mom would have HIT me with the car if this had been me. Then she might have even shifted it into reverse and done it again just to make sure I got the point :-)

Let's also not forget that while he's at college, he is still considered a dependent - and so the mother has every right to whatever parenting methods she deems fit (barring actual abuse, obviously).

I don't think we have any right to criticize her parenting at all.

But damn - this is one of the best classifieds I've ever seen - way to go!

(Granted, the excessive media exposure may be pushing it a bit...)

    Mom buys the car, mom makes the rules. Freshman rides the bus for a while.

    Publishing the kid's dirty laundry in the classifieds, not cool. Might be time to move out and provide for himself...

@RvLeshrac: Geez, I hope you're not able to reproduce.

Gotta love the puritanical society we live in.

If the guy's drinking in the car, that's definitely unacceptable, esp. he ever gets pulled over and has an open bottle in the car.

BUT...who cares if he's drinking or not? He's 19 years old for God's sake! I would hope that he has had MANY drinks by this age.

I don't think it's any coincidence that the US has the highest drinking age out of the western countries and also has the highest rates of alcoholism and DUIs. My parents raised me with alcohol readily and freely accessible. Because of that, I tried quite a few things, most by age 14, and really didn't care for it all that much. Dinner was always served (or ordered at a restaurant) with a glass of wine for as long as I can remember.

Now I probably only have 1-2 drinks a week and that's it. Never have had the urge to binge-drink, nor drink to get drunk. I don't think I've ever actually been drunk. Alcohol wasn't a forbidden fruit in my house, so I didn't share the same desires to obtain it when I was in high school and college. Didn't this country learn anything from Prohibition?

@mell: I'm not giving him a criminal record -- it was his choice to have the booze in the car. If the guy wants to be an adult, he'll need deal with responsibilities and consequences.

@mell: Guess I ducked the actual question. So let's put it this way: Encouraging your kids to be responsible adults is a good thing. Oh, you're an adult now? Remember all of those lessons and discussions about being a responsible adult... or else? Welcome to adulthood.

So, again, while I'm not the one giving him a criminal record (he chose to do that on his own), I still think it's a good thing.

@esthermofet: If you call the police, the record is coming at your behest. We're not talking a traffic stop, we're talking you actually calling the police to the location to see what is there. So now you've just sabotaged his future because now he has an alcohol related offense on his criminal record. Nice way to set him up for the future.