Return of the Attack of the Monster Parents

Some of you may recall last month when I mentioned the so-called "Monster Parent" phenomenon in Japan. My friend who is living in Japan right now to teach English to children recently informed me of another disgusting level to the whole thing: Monster Parent Insurance.

Here's an article that discusses how last year, nearly 22,000 teachers in Japan paid out the rough equivalent of $50 a year to be insured up to roughly $1,000,000 against the lawsuits of Monster Parents.

Along the way, the article also mentions a parent demanding that since the school was forbidding the use of cell phones on a class trip, that it should pay the portion of a child's phone bill for the period in which it could not be used.

Lunacy!