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California Mom Issues Cruel and Unusual Twerk Punishment

Miley Cyrus, twerk, twerking, parent, punishment, 11-year-old, California, parent, mom, daughter, bakersfield

Oh, Miley Cyrus, look what you’ve gone and done. The oh-so-offended Parents Television Council warned that the singer’s tongue-wagging twerking at the MTV Video Music Awards was inappropriate for little kids, and young girls are imitating her at a horrifyingly young age. That’s awful, but teaching kids not to imitate alwaysnaked pop heiresses is probably a lifelong process between parents and children — not something that can be remedied after the fact by an equally horrifying show of discipline.

Alas, a mother in Bakersfield, California, found out that her 11-year-old daughter was twerking at a school dance, and the parent was understandably upset. But does the punishment fit the crime? As ABC News reports (via Newsday), Francis Hena punished her 11-year-old daughter for her school-dance misbehavior by forcing her to stand at an intersection for two hours holding a sign. The sign’s text: “I was disrespecting my parents by twerking at a school dance.”

We don’t really have an editorial stance on school dances, but it does seem hugely reasonable to expect that 11-year-olds would not be twerking at them. Hena argues the school should have put a stop to the moves, and again, it’s impossible for an outsider to assess blame here. “It’s not something kids should be doing,” Hena is quoted as saying. But should kids be standing at intersections for two hours holding a sign reminding people that they were twerking? You stay cray, human beings: We are, after all, a species that puts Ylvis’ “The Fox” on the Billboard Hot 100.