5 Badass Kids Who Came Through In A Clutch
by Ian Fortey
A while back, I wrote about "5 Kids More Badass Than Most Adults," and it brought me great joy, because suck it, THE MAN! I'd give a poetic, heartfelt explanation as to why I'm going back to that well, but the truth is, I can't get enough of these wonderful, tiny humans. And I also wanted to say, "Suck it, THE MAN" again.
A 10 Year Old Boy Foils His Own Kidnapping By Singing Gospel For Three Hours
For a parent, next to finding out your kid likes Ed Sheeran, a kidnapping has to be one of the worst things you can imagine. It makes you feel terrified and powerless, but just imagine how it has to be for the child. But if you're 10-year-old Willie Myrick, you don't let that kind of stuff get you down when some jackass snags you from the front yard. Instead, you troll them with Jesus until they snap.
Myrick was in his Atlanta yard and saw some money on the ground. He made a move for it when someone jumped him from behind and tossed him in a car. The faceless thug told Myrick to shut up, that he didn't want to hear a word from him. Myrick did what any kid would do when told not to make noise: he made noise. He sang a gospel song called "Every Praise." For three solid hours.
USA Today
Troll level: God.
After three hours of a song which, and I counted this, features the words "every praise" 108 times in just one single run-through, the kidnapper couldn't bear another moment and kicked Myrick out of his car. The 10-year-old went to the first house he could find to ask for help. He was returned home safe and sound, and somewhere out there is a real sack of crap who's going to have that song stuck in his head for the rest of his life.
An 8 Year Old Girl Annoyed A Senator Until He Changed His Position On An Upcoming Law
There was a time when caring about politics was considered mostly uncool and boring, but a few astute kids realized if they get into politics they, too, can one day run the world and ensure that all vending machines across the country are full of tacos and ice cream. But there's at least one 8-year-old out there who took it 10 levels further and managed to help shape some policy in Tennessee.
In 2013, Tennessee was set to vote on a bill that would link a family's welfare benefits with the academic performance of their children. If a kid does poorly in school, benefits get cut. You'll recognize this as a terrible idea that puts an already stressful situation on the shoulders of children instead of their parents, because why not, right? The bill had already passed house and senate committees, but when it was set to be voted on, state senator Stacey Campfield who sponsored the bill, dropped his support.
KnoxNews.com
He dropped the mic, too, but only because he's a clumsy butthole.
While the official word was that more research needed to be done, the media noted that on the day he dropped his support, eight-year-old Aamira Fetuga had shadowed Campfield around the capitol, presenting him with a signed petition and generally stalking him through the halls, asking why he wanted to cut people's benefits and saying she was afraid of her lights being cut off. He cordially offered excuses as the girl followed him down hallways and to the escalator, then to an elevator where he referred to her as "a prop." Whatever his feelings were, the public shaming seemed to work, and the bill got dropped like a bag of turds with a hole in it.
An 11 Year Old Girl Delivered A Baby Just In Time For Class
If ‘80s and ‘90s sitcoms taught us nothing else, it's that anyone can deliver a baby after mugging for the camera for a moment, and that the baby will also come out clean as a whistle and about six months old. In real life you think that stuff would be more difficult. But no, it's not. Well, maybe for you or me, but for 11-year-old Caitlin Burke it was just another Tuesday.
Caitlin's dad left just after five in the morning to take Caitlin's younger siblings to his sister's place in anticipation of the birth, and that's when her mom's water broke. Apparently Dad wasn’t the sort of dude to own a cell phone, so it was up to Caitlin to handle this one. She called 911, and since there wasn't much chance of her mom holding out until an ambulance could get her to the hospital, she had to roll up her sleeves (if she’d had sleeves) and get to the baby deliverin'.
itv.com
She'd better have gotten out of all chores for the rest of her life.
Reports say the baby was born just after seven a.m., so for an inexplicable two hours, Caitlin had been on the phone with emergency staff who’d walked her through the whole process of assisting a birth, from getting towels down to unwrapping the umbilical cord which was around the baby's head to rubbing the baby down to get it to start crying. Where was the actual ambulance during all of this? What am I, a doctor? I don't know.
And the most badass part? After delivering the baby and making sure everything was cool, Caitlin got her stuff and went to school for the day. Like a boss.
A 10 Year Old Girl Took On A Gator And Won
Do you know what to do when you're attacked by an alligator? I don't either, and I assume if it ever does happen to me, there's going to be a lot of people pausing and cocking their heads because they're pretty sure they just heard a cursing echo across the universe. But maybe 10-year-old Juliana Ossa doesn't have the stevedore's mouth that I have, and in lieu of cussing in a cosmically significant way, she did the next best thing: she fought back.
Ossa was swimming in all of two feet of water when a nine-foot alligator clamped onto her leg. She gave it a few quick shots to the forehead that proved useless ... then she bent down and full-on Three Stooged the beast by jamming two fingers up its nose. No longer able to breathe, the gator had to open its mouth to suck in that sweet oxygen, and released her flesh.
BBC
And that's how Happy Gilmore was made.
Once on shore, paramedics tended to her leg, which was pretty significantly injured and bloodied from the attack, but noted she was pretty calm despite the ordeal. They told her that she did the right thing: if you're was being attacked by a gator, you have to fight back. And let's be honest, it's the only way a gator is going to learn you're not a snack.
These Kids Have Paid Off Tens Of Thousands In School Debt (And Are Shooting For The Entire State)
If there's one thing kids are terrible at it's voting while smoking cigarettes and gambling. They just can't do it. Another thing is making money, thanks to those child labor laws that chimney sweeps ushered in back in the '60s. But not every child is limited by their perceived lack of economic viability. Some kids will pull some tried and true methods of making a few bucks, like the classic lemonade stand, and then go beyond all reason with it. For a good cause, even.
Amiah Van Hill, who is only six, read a story about a man who used crowd-funding to pay off the school lunch debt for his son's school district. She thought it was a cool idea, so she wanted to see if she could raise money to pay off the debt for some of her classmates. She started a lemonade stand and raised $40, which was enough to cover her class. And maybe some people would have quit there, but this girl's veins run hot with citric acid and altruism, so she upped the ante. She wanted to pay off two whole schools, which she did the next weekend after raising $300.
ABC News
Admittedly, the meth stand is doing way better sales.
Not content to rest on lemony laurels, Van Hill set her sights higher: the entire school district's $23,000 debt. This took a little more than a weekend stand, however. But with a GoFundMe, the stand, and a few people paying their own way, she actually pulled it off and dragged that $23,000 down to the ground. She's currently at it again, looking to pay off the entire debt for the state of Idaho. She has just over $4000 of the $100,000 needed. And you can still donate, if you like.
A nine Year Old Girl Is Breaking Crime News In Her Neighborhood Before The Actual News Can Get To It
There's something to be said for the free press when they're reliable and accurate and not telling you terrible news 24/7. That was what may have inspired Hilde Kate Lysiak, the nine-year-old daughter of a former New York Daily News reporter, to take up the old man's pencil and cool hat with a feather in it, to become a local reporter in Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania.
Now before you think it's super adorable that a little girl is playing at being a reporter in her sleepy little town, you should know that the story she's most famous for breaking was about a murder. Despite being only nine, she was in pursuit of a story about vandalism when she happened to catch the local police chief rushing out of the station. She followed and discovered that a woman had been murdered, and she ended up scooping every other news outlet by hours.
Washington Post
That's a "bring it" look if we ever saw one.
Her stories include images and video for the website, when necessary, as well as relevant quotes from people involved. You can even subscribe to the Orange Street News for the bargain price of $14.99 a year. Her older sister helps her with some editing, and her father will occasionally offer feedback but is otherwise not involved because it wouldn't be a kid's newspaper otherwise.
While some people don't think a child should be covering hammer murders, Lysiak, who is a member of the Society of Professional Journalists, counters all criticisms by saying she didn't get into this to be some cute kid — she did it to inform people about what's going on in the world. And she has no interest in working for a paper when she's older; she wants to own one outright. And maybe destroy her enemies; she's young yet so it's hard to say.
