The Washington Post reports that a mother in Rock Hill, South Carolina, shaved her son’s head and dressed him in women’s clothing, “parading him around” a local Wal-Mart in order to punish him for making homophobic remarks.
The Herald first reported the story. Allegedly, police arrived at the store to find a 10-year-old boy tottering through the aisles in women’s boots, a tutu, a women’s undergarment, and a T-shirt “with various permanent marker writing underneath.”
The police report claims the boy’s head was shaved “in an unusual manner, bald on top with a patch of wig on the front of his head.” To top things off, the word “BAD” was written in black marker on the back of the boy’s head.
Apparently, the boy’s mother told police that she was “punishing her son for fighting and making homophobic remarks in school.” She added that the boy had ongoing attitude problems and “corporal punishment has been ineffective, so she was attempting to embarrass” him into behaving better.
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Rock Hill Police spokesman Mark Bollinger told the Washington Post that the county’s department of social services had been notified regarding the women’s parenting skills.
“We’re not going to charge the mother with anything,” he added. “The incident apparently shocked some customers and some of the staff, and they gave us a call.”
Bollinger added that, in South Carolina, that form of public humiliation as punishment is “very unusual.”
It’s probably unusual in North Carolina, too.
