Posted on 01/27/2016 12:09:03 PM PST by Beave Meister
When Ronald Jackson found a text he thought was rude and inappropriate on his then-12-year-old daughter's phone in September 2013, he took the cell away. But the child's mother, Michelle Steppe, balked at his action -- and she called the police.
Steppe and Jackson have not been a couple for years, and Steppe is now married to a Grand Prairie, Texas, police officer. When the police showed up at Jackson's door later that day and asked for the iPhone 4 back, Jackson refused. "At that point I decided the police don't interfere with my ability to parent my daughter," he told KHOU 11 News on Wednesday.
But Steppe insisted that the phone belonged to her, and three months after Jackson refused to return it, he got a citation in the mail for theft of property. He was offered a plea deal in January 2014 if he would return the phone. Instead, Jackson hired an attorney and requested a jury trial.
The case moved to Dallas County and, unbeknownst to Jackson, a warrant was issued for his arrest. The police showed up at his door around 2 a.m. in April 2015, and Jackson was handcuffed and taken to jail.
(Excerpt) Read more at yahoo.com ...
I’m wondering if this is one of those situations where there is more to the story than we are being told. Perhaps the phone is the way the mother keeps in touch with her daughter and when the father took it away, it made it difficult to stay in touch. In this day and age the telephone is the easiest way to keep up communication with people. There may not even be a landline in the father’s home. My first reaction to the story was that the father was being a real father on the mother was being a jerk. Now I wonder what else there is that we don’t know about the situation.
My oldest son did not get a cell phone until after he graduated from college. While he never complained, he told us later that it made things very difficult because everyone else could get together and make plans easily and he had to wait to hear from people on the landline in his room or via an email when he was logged on to his PC. Yes, back in our day we all had to use our landlines to make plans or we all talked about making plans together over a meal or after class, but now when everyone else is texting each other and planning things quickly and on the spur of the moment, the one person who doesn’t have the ability to do that gets left out.
Correction.... “My first reaction to the story was that the father was being a real father AND the mother was being a jerk”
“Dad Arrested for Stealing Phone from Ex-Wife.”
"You can't take someone's property, regardless if you're a parent or not," Steppe said
Actually, your son had an option - get a job and purchase his own cell phone if it was all that important to him.
Heck. I didn’t get mine until I was 30. My Mother and sister had one before I did but only a few years. My children do not get a cell phone until 10 and it has worked pretty well. I couldn’t stand having to wait for the kids to finish up sports and other stuff. Now I can get a call when they finish practice and by the time I get there they are done with locker room, last minute talk with friends. My children are 17, 15, 13, and 8. They are good kids. Mostly because my wife is a great Mom. Plus I haven’t had to bail them out of jail yet. The only thing that sucks is that my oldest graduates high school this year and off to college in August........My wife and I often talking about wishing we had more children. We did leave it up to God and he said 4 was enough........we had a hell of a time getting number 4.
Obviously the man was arrested. A woman would not have been arrested.
The father apparently had custody of his child (and her apparent possessions) at the time he took the phone.
The taking wasn’t theft.
If my mom gave me something I would assume it was mine, and so would my father.
Parents - even divorced parents - need to have a united front when it comes to their children.
What did the girl learn?
That she has all of the power in the dynamic. She can always run to ‘mommy’ and get daddy in trouble to get whatever she wants.
This mother just destroyed the girl’s relationship with her father and ruined her young life.
That is the option my children have.
The ex-wife is married to a policeman, seems like the cops were doing a favor to the stepfather. Shame on them. However, I cannot imagine taking an iphone4 and thinking I would get away with keeping it. He took it when the daughter was 12, and she is now 15. The father must think she hasn’t grown up at all in those years. Sad state of affairs. The father has now abandoned his daughter. Wonder why. This family embraces dysfunction.
You are correct:
“Although Jackson won the case and is allowed to keep the phone, he said he has had to separate himself from Steppe and his daughter because of this incident. ‘I can’t ever have a relationship with them again,’ he said.”
Or maybe the father ruined his own relationship with her. He should have talked to the mother about his concerns with the phone. And I doubt the daughter went “running to mommy”, mom BOUGHT her the phone, at some point she probably tried to CALL the daughter on the phone SHE BOUGHT, and of course didn’t get through because dad took it. Then he wouldn’t give it back for months. And really if dad can’t wrap his head around who bought and therefore who should get it if it needs to be confiscated having that relationship destroyed probably won’t ruin her life.
Who paid for the phone?
Who pays the cell phone bill?
If it is not the dad, then he did not have a right to confiscate the phone on his own.
You didn’t read the article. The jury sided with the father. Mama shouldn’t have tried to stick it to him through her new policeman husband. Policeman husband should have been on the carpet and investigated for his role in this fiasco. Everyone lost, especially the daughter. The bratty apple doesn’t fall far from the vendictive mama tree.
OK.
Take it from daughter.
Return to purchaser - Ex wife.
Continue until daughter ‘wises up’.
If the mother bought the daughter a CAR and she drove drunk and ran over the family pet (or worse) would there be the same reaction if ‘Daddy’ took the keys?
Actually ‘Daddy’ would have probably gotten arrested if he didn’t take away the keys.
Yes, he did have that option and he chose not to do it. It wasn’t that important to him. My son started working at age 14 and save $10,000 for college over 10 years ago. He’s not a slacker. And like I said, he never complained about it. But, years later he told me that it was difficult making plans while everyone else was doing it easily with their phones. He’s 29 years old now. It’s ancient history. He just had his first child and my first grandchild. It will be interesting to see when that child gets his first phone.
The ultimate reward and satisfaction from being a good human parent.
I was also one of those 'meanies.'
And in any future life, I intend to so be again.
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