This was an excellent documentary that largely dispensed with any biased narration, instead opting to stand out of the way to let the unbelievably shocking behavior of these most abusive of parents tell the story. The mother of the tennis twins is more simply obsessed with success, and is not nearly as horrible as the 3 fathers, who share the scary combination of two toxic personality disorders, authoritarianism and narcissism. In the ultra-competitive venue of today's childhood sports, they have found the ideal forum for asserting their need for absolute dominance and power.
The 3 fathers are first and foremost childish, truculent bullies. They all share a middling to low level of intelligence as they parrot self- help sports books that they only partially understand, but they all have an exaggerated high opinion of their own intelligence and importance, thus permitting the abusive behavior and their complete isolation from other adults who can call them on their pretenses.
Most frightening was watching Golf Dad and Football Dad berate their children with such singular anger, wildly inappropriate bad language and truly painful name-calling. I realized that some parents really are capable of not loving their children. Rather they see them as objects to bully and completely dominate, with endless sets of the authoritarian's rules that are set up so that no one can successfully follow them all.
I truly fear for Justus, the football son. He's not an above-average football player, which sets him up for ever-escalating tirades of abuse, and his more sensitive personality leaves him constantly wounded and suffering, with no defenses. This kind of misery leads to addictions or suicide in an effort to escape, and this film was chilling in the way it unflinchingly showed the bleak road ahead for this sad young man. This kind of mental abuse should earn this selfish bully of a father prison time.
The 3 fathers are first and foremost childish, truculent bullies. They all share a middling to low level of intelligence as they parrot self- help sports books that they only partially understand, but they all have an exaggerated high opinion of their own intelligence and importance, thus permitting the abusive behavior and their complete isolation from other adults who can call them on their pretenses.
Most frightening was watching Golf Dad and Football Dad berate their children with such singular anger, wildly inappropriate bad language and truly painful name-calling. I realized that some parents really are capable of not loving their children. Rather they see them as objects to bully and completely dominate, with endless sets of the authoritarian's rules that are set up so that no one can successfully follow them all.
I truly fear for Justus, the football son. He's not an above-average football player, which sets him up for ever-escalating tirades of abuse, and his more sensitive personality leaves him constantly wounded and suffering, with no defenses. This kind of misery leads to addictions or suicide in an effort to escape, and this film was chilling in the way it unflinchingly showed the bleak road ahead for this sad young man. This kind of mental abuse should earn this selfish bully of a father prison time.
