15-year-old Madelynn Sumpter of Denton, Texas just lived through an excruciating few weeks. For making a few bad decisions.
Bad decision number one was helping to sneak boys into a slumber party. Thatโs the kind of thing most parents would take exception to. And the kind of thing most parents would dish out some discipline for.
This is where Madelynnโs second bad decision comes in.
Madelynnโs Parents Give Her a Choice
Did your parents ever give you a choice when they were grounding you? Or did you as a parent ever give your kids a choice? Thatโs what Madelynnโs parents, Tawnya Ford and Larry Sumpter, did.
In an interview with Today, Madelynnโs mom, Tawnya says,
โWe said you can either go a month without a phone, or two weeks without a phone but we have complete control of your social media.โ
Madelynn chose door number two, however, she quickly learned it wasnโt the lesser of two evils.
Itโs not surprising she chose as she did. Because from her perspectiveโat least at that timeโanything would be better than being without her phone for a month. But Madelynn is one of six kids, so you can bet mom and dad arenโt pushovers. And they arenโt. Dad got the last laugh.
Dad Takes Over
Caption: Felt cute. Might delete later.
When youโre a 15-year-old girl your parents can be embarrassing at the best of times, right? Well, Larry Sumpter cranked that embarrassment into the stratosphere. Heโs taken his show on the road and has become a master at TikTokโs lip sync app. As for her Instagram account, heโs having a blast posting selfies and a collection of truly embarrassing pictures.
And while he doesnโt seem to get too embarrassedโheโs having too much funโMadelynn is mortified.
According to Today, her mom says,
โAfter the first day, Madelynn was like, โI changed my mind. I choose the one month.โ
She then laughs and continues,
โLarry told her, โNo. Iโm too invested. I have too many ideas. Weโre sticking with the two weeks.โ Heโs loving it. I think heโs going to make his own TikTok account when this is over.โ
And as you can see in some of the pictures, heโs also recruited the help of family members as well. His son-in-law was up to a Daisy Duke challenge, and along with Sumpter did a song and dance routine.
The Torture Continues
Honestly, you need to respect this guy. In a world where it seems many parents donโt discipline or punish their kids at all, this guy got creative and got his point across.
Do you think Madelynn is going to remember this lesson for the rest of her life? Iโm sure she will. She will retell the story until sheโs old and grayโand it will likely take that long before the embarrassment fades.
Larry is Just Being Larry
Madelynnโs mom told Today,
โWeโre always down to embarrass our kids!โ
It seems that Madelynn is no stranger to her dadโs crazy antics. He likes to do things like pick her up at school dressed as the mascot while blaring country music.
So perhaps she should have been more wary when he proposed the option of taking over her social media for two weeks.
