Good intentions aren’t the stuff of heroism

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By ELIJAH GOSIER

© St. Petersburg Times, published April 10, 2001

John Redbrook is no hero.

Doubtless, some people will try to make him one after his acquittal on child abuse charges that followed a spanking he gave his son.

The same people use the government as the scapegoat for their undisciplined children. The government, they say, won't let parents discipline their kids anymore.

Redbrook says that, too, along with many other things once he gets going. "The system is doing an injustice to this country," he says. "They're putting in (children's) heads the attitude that they can get away with anything by just calling the authorities."

Some people will lionize him for that and for standing up to the state when it tried to interfere with the way he was raising his children. "They offered me everything under the sun to plead guilty. I said no." Some people will praise him for refusing to take the safe way out by pleading guilty and not risking jail time, for standing on his principles.

But before you start collecting for the statue, know a little bit more of his story.

Redbrook's trial stemmed from events of Sept. 26, 1999, when he and two of his children had a date to meet someone for brunch. As the time approached, Redbrook sent his daughter to tell his son to get ready. According to Redbrook, his 11-year-old son's reply was: "I ain't doing nothing."

Redbrook went into the boy's bedroom with a belt. "I closed the door and gave him a dusting."

After the dusting, Redbrook left the room. His son started cussing, Redbrook says, so he went back and redusted.

That pattern was repeated three times. On his fourth trip, his daughter, then 15, said "no more" and tried to keep him from returning to her brother's room. Testimony during his trial said Redbrook didn't just pull away from her, as he contends, but pushed the girl against a wall. The charges, of which Redbrook was acquitted, cited physical abuse of both children.

Redbrook said the incident that morning was not spontaneous, but had been at least two years in the making. During that time, his son had broken windows, skipped school, smoked in his room and used a hammer to damage one of Redbrook's vehicles.

Redbrook describes his community of Moon Lake as "a little ol' redneck area with bikers on one side and KKKers on the other." He said he has tried to keep his son away from the negative influences of both.

Child welfare agencies had been involved with his family even before "They sent a lady from Pluto here," he said of the counselor sent to work with him and the children's stepmother. "I don't know where she was from. She said a child has a right to privacy," a notion alien to Redbrook. "If my kid don't keep his room clean, I'm going to go in there and check it. She told my wife as a stepmother she couldn't go into their rooms to check for drugs."

Redbrook is an Army veteran who says the respect and obedience the military needs to function are also necessary in the family. "Unless you have this in your home, you have chaos. You have a kid's mentality running the home," he said.

He has the makings of a heroic figure. He is a plainspoken self-described country boy who believes in discipline and hard work, attributes that imbue their holder with an aura of innocence and a sense that his actions are motivated by good intentions.

But good intentions need good plans to produce good results.

In the absence of that combination, good intentions turn into bad situations, such as a father deeming that his son, at 11 years old, needs a spanking.

That is where Redbrook begins to lose hero stature.

He had 11 years to prevent that morning from getting out of hand. He had 11 years to teach his son not to mouth off at him, 11 years for both to learn that spanking, though sometimes necessary to curb defiant behavior, does nothing to cure the problem and is always an admission of failure.

And that problem has to be pretty big for the behavior to persist through four "dustings."

"He was raised in a dysfunctional family," Redbrook said of his son. He described himself as "a certified alcoholic," who still struggles with sobriety and demons that followed him home from Vietnam. The children also had to weather their parents' divorce and the strained relationship between them afterward.

So if you're looking for a hero, don't look to John Redbrook, unless you're writing Greek tragedy.

His tragic flaws are many.

As in tragedies, the flaws and sins of the father are often visited upon the son.

Yes, Redbrook made a principled stand for a parent's right to raise his children; yes, he got a jury to say there is a discernible line between spanking and abusing; yes, he did it by representing himself, with a lawyer's advice only.

But don't call him a hero.

The heroes weren't on trial last week for trying to fix the victim of 11 years of dysfunction by dusting his britches. The heroes were going about the business of raising their children, mostly without incident.

With the acquittal, Redbrook is seeking to regain custody of his children, who have been in foster care since the arrest.

If he succeeds, it really won't matter what people decide to call him, so long as his children can call him father and mean it.

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