The sorry lives of ex-child stars are the stuff of legend. Now, MentalFloss has uncovered the unique parenting styles that have given the world such delightful trainwreck has-beens as Danny Bonaduce and Gary Coleman, though how they could write this entire piece without a single reference to Michael Jackson has me wondering…

A sampling from the section on Anissa Jones, who played Buffy on Family Affair:

Yes, everyone seemed to love Anissa except her own parents. Her folks had divorced since moving to L.A., and Mrs. Jones took charge of her daughter’s career. She forced an unhappy Anissa to wear baby-doll dresses and style her hair in childish pigtails at the age of 13, simply because she had a lucrative marketing deal to sell a Buffy-style clothing line. When Anissa turned 15, no one in her family remembered to buy her a birthday cake.

All right, so we already know that Glinda and the Munchkin are not exactly models of perfection when it comes to school and following all of the seemingly arbitrary rules.

I never thought I was rebellious in any way, but hearing the teacher complain about the way the Munchkin writes is enough to make me want to go all Zapata on her. Although with a much less violent outcome.

You see, she explained sweetly, the Munchkin does not write correctly. Why? It isn’t because his letters are formed incorrectly. Indeed, his writing is perfectly clear and legible. No, it is because when he forms a straight line, he does it from the bottom up instead of top down.

Instant disqualification!

When she told me this, I had a really hard time keeping a straight face. Was she serious? I naively assumed that if the line was straight and the letter recognizable all was good. Then I tried to explain that I wasn’t really sure this was all that important, and when he moves to cursive writing, the lines are formed going both up and down. So I wasn’t really getting the point.

But no.

The Munchkin would be suffering a lower handwriting grade if he continued to have the audacity to make straight lines in an unapproved manner.

I spoke briefly with the Munchkin about his deficient straight lines, and he whispered confidentially to me that when the teacher was around, he would make the lines the way she wanted. But when she wasn’t, back to the way he was comfortable with.

I say, don’t let the man keep you down, kid!