Tuesday's New York Daily News carried one of the saddest pieces EarlyStories has ever seen about parental expectations gone wrong.

In a story that is likely far more complicated than meets the eye, a U.S. soldier was arrested for waterboarding his 4-year-old daughter because she wouldn't say her ABC's.

Army Sgt. Joshua Taylor admitted that he punished his daughter by holding her down on the kitchen counter of their home and pushing her head backward into a full sink of water, according to the story.

This is probably not a tale about societal and/or parental expectations for pre-schoolers. It's may be more illustrative of the problems an Iraq war veteran is having adjusting to civilian life.

'He would lay her down on her back and push her head into the water right up to her eyeline. He was open about it," Todd Stancil, the police chief in Yelm, Washington, is quoted as saying in the story. "He did it all the time. To him, that was an acceptable form of punishment - because she wasn't able to say the alphabet."

Tabor will be arraigned next month, and is out on bail and restricted to his base. It's difficult to fathom what the father expected of the child and if she had real learning issues that might be identified.

Again, this is a story that is far sadder -- and more complicated -- than a few sensational paragraphs about learning the ABC's might convey.