I am so glad these abuses are receiving mainstream attention. The way we treat children in our society is rotten. 18 years a slave.
I'm exceptionally lucky in that when I got my first apartment at 19 years old, you could still find an apartment in LA for $600. Now you're just screwed, I've met tons of people who are essentially trapped in extremely abusive homes well into their twenties and beyond.
I've seen this happen to people from practically every background, with a good chunk of my Asian friends experiencing something like that. One lived in a homeless shelter for a while just to get away from his parents.
Getting rid of the current FASA system which assumes harmonious families, would do so much to help young people get started. If I had a magic wand, I'd ban affirmative action completely, and in its place give everyone financial aid even if they don't have a relationship with their parents.
"It's 4 in the morning, there's two huge dudes in my room, they're like 'You're coming with us', and they put in the back of a car and drove me to the middle of nowhere."
Why am I mentioning that? Because Tom Hanks, it seemed, was close to yell at Ricky to just stop throwing "dirt" around. He looked like a hit dog, almost like he felt being accused of something. Adding the fact that he send his own child to tough love program doesn't paint too nice a picture of him. At the very least, he took the, for him, easy way of parenting and can't lough about himself (or his social circle).