From CTV.ca news staff:
Police in Barrie, Ont., said Wednesday that a witness spoke to a
15-year-old boy on the day he went missing after an argument with his
parents over his Xbox.
...
Brandon had become addicted to the game "Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare," his parents said.
He skipped school on the Thursday prior to Thanksgiving weekend,
causing his parents to revoke his Xbox privileges -- a disciplinary
measure they had used, his father said.
"We had basically taken his Xbox away. He took it back, and the
catalyst for this was I took it away for good the second time and at
that point, that was when he said he couldn't handle it anymore, he
said he was leaving," said Steve Crisp.
...
His parents described him as an average teenage boy and said he has never done anything like this before.
"He's a great kid," Angelika Crisp said. "He's a little bit shier
than some kids but he's always been a great kid -- good at school,
loves sports, or he used to love sports before he got addicted to this
game."
...
There is also an article over at the CBC.ca news site but those left-wing, liberal, socialist bastards are horrible reporters. However, for completeness, and because I respect the views of others, no matter how different from me, and therefore wrong, they are, here is the link to that one.
I hope these parents do find their son.
Now it is time for my rant.
What the hell happened to our society? When I was 15, besides finding some nice person to bootleg for me and my friends, I did what my elders told me. I knew what fresh air was like. I skipped school but it was to do normal things, like drink. I had a Sega Genesis and that was turned on once a month if I was bored.
Parenting these days has become too soft. I was never afraid of my parents taking away my toys; I was terrified of them beating my ass. I grew up knowing what soap tasted like; my parents had belts, rubber hoses, and wooden spoons readily avialable and they were willing to use them. If they didn't beat the hell out of me when I did something wrong, I slept on horse blankets in the barn. I never had the police look for me for any reason but if I did I sure wouldn't be scared of them; I would be terrified of what my father would do to me when he got his hands on me. Most likely he would give me a hunting knife and tell me to go find a willow and make a switch for him to use on me. I learned very young that thicker switches hurt a lot less than the small, whippy ones. Fear was generally a great deterrent.
I will admit I was not the best behaved child. I am the youngest of multiple children and my siblings set the bar fairly low. Of course I wish some one would have told me it was a high jumping competition and not limbo. Damn I was good at limbo.