OBJECTIVE CHILD REARING PART 1

I read an article the other day dealing with children being spanked having lower IQ’s than children who were not spanked. Believe it or not I can read even though multi syllabic words still offer me great dif-fi-cul-ty. It is hard to write when I have to stop and clap out the syllables but I do my best.

The article itself was blah and rife with ‘what about’s’ and ‘says who’. What really caught my attention were the comments about the article. No math was applied to deriving the percentages but I would say with a 10 % accuracy, 85%-90% of the comments were pro spanking. When I say ‘pro spanking’ I do not mean that all of those people wanted a league or association to judge or teach proper techniques in spanking. Nor do I mean there is an amateur spanking league and all the respondents/commenter’s wanted to move up to the big show of professional spanking. Even though I would train hard in order to beat the bejeezus out of random whiney children, this is not to be-yet.

The majority of the comments were well written and grammatically correct which leads me to believe no one from Belle River responded and the average comment writer was fairly well educated. The few ‘anti-spanking’ comments seemed to be written from atop some ethereal pedestal. You could almost see the frizzy haired, jesus sandaled granola swilling peaceniks who wrote these comments dancing around an organic fire singing KumBaya all naked and hirsute and smelling like Patchouli and BO.

I can, to some degree see the children who belong to these wanna be Hippie posers. I imagine that they are the people who bring their long oily haired ilk to everything, including your home, when they were not invited in the first place. They show up, open the gate to your rear yard and let the children go batshit crazy (or act normal for their standards). They play bumper mower with your lawnmower and wheelbarrow. Chase the dogs with your weed whipper and throw firewood and pruning shears into your pool. Nothing is left untouched. Your favourite dirtbike/motocycle/car that you wipe down with a diaper every Sunday is violated by popsicle juice and the darts you thought were hidden. Your dogs that would stand their ground against a rabid Grizzly cower under bushes or the patio. You are questioned about your choice in beer and asked to provide ‘vegetarian’ barbecue for them because red meat and chicken give Little Tommy the trots. It wouldn’t be a problem but 10 year old Tommy was never forced to accept toilet training and he can’t stand wearing diapers and they ‘Don’t want to have an incident!’ on your brand new carpet.

The pendulum swings both ways in discussions like these. I am not grubbing for money to do research so I think I can be pretty objective on this topic. I have a suspicion that the simple word of ‘spanking’ automatically evokes images of drunken Goliath parent’s savagely beating their children for breathing too heavily. MY experience in spanking comes from seeing it and listening to parents talk about it. I have seen tiny women give their prescious children a swipe on the backside. I have seen very large people give their children a pat on the bum to get their kids attention. Never have I witnessed a parent using what I would deem ‘excessive’ force on a child. Once I saw a woman smack her child in the face. This woman was quickly threatened by an elderly gentleman who promised to do the same to her if she ever struck her child in the face again. I truly believe that the average parent would never want to hurt their child mentally or physically. I do think that an unruly kid should be subject to a swift smack on the bum or have their grubby little hands smacked when they are doing something or taking something when they shouldn’t. Don’t scar the child but get their attention and force them to listen to you. They are children and should do your bidding.

There were certain ‘rules’ in our family when I grew up.
1) NEVER LIE
2) Elbows off of the dinner table
3) Chew your food with your mouth closed
4) Do as you are told
5) Always say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’
6) Open the door for women and elderly people
7) Never wear a hat into a building
8) NEVER EVER LIE
9) Don’t start what you can’t finish
10) You can question the rules when you pay rent

As a kid (I once was a kid believe it or not), every once in a while something would get me so wound up or excited that I would get on my parents nerves. After two verses of, ‘if you don’t settle down you are going to be sorry!’ I was usually very sorry. This usually ended up with me sitting in a car alone or being grabbed by the back of my neck and led around like a blind person. I had my mouth washed out with soap on many an occasion for using, shall we say, advanced linguistics not suited to an eight year old. The worst was the parental follow up to my trying to lie. I don’t know if any of you have done this but in my childhood mind, if a story went on and on and on with confusing twists and turns and poor character development there was no way possible mom or dad would ever figure out I was lying. Good theory until Pops Grizzly growled and would say, “ I am only going to ask you once…” - Always the negotiator and tactician he wouldn’t finish his words before I admitted I was lying. Down in the basement..crack crack crack –lesson learned.

It is simple discipline. I needed direction- I got it. My father never wanted to spank me and he never caused any physical harm. Was I scared of the man? Damn Tootin’! When he spoke, did I listen? Always. What bothers me about some of the lawn apes today is that they are allowed to do whatever they want whenever they want. I don’t know if it jealousy or not but if I had ever spoken to my mother the way I hear kids today talk to their parents I would have been killed – by my mom and then my dad, and then my mom again.

I remember my friend’s fathers and ‘The Look’. Every father seemed to have ‘the look’. IF you got ‘the look’ it meant shut up and calm down. The Look was usually tied into a dad growl. This was a tone, usually low and gravelly that, much like Pavlov ringing a bell, was used to convey that boundaries were being crossed that should not be crossed.

I don’t hear the dad growl or see the ‘Look’ anymore. I do see the look of despair and the vacuous stare of men who could only wear a smile if they saw God’s hand holding a cocked pistol coming out of the sky to end their misery.

I strongly believe the average male is all for spanking except for the following reasons;
1) Our Hippie parents told us spanking was bad
2) Our Hippie teachers told us it was bad
3) Our wanna be Hippie wives won’t let us spank our children.
4) Everyone wants us to use logic and reason on toddlers.

Why I think this is wrong;
1) & 2) Our generation never got to smoke dope and have ‘free love’. Our generation got to deal with AIDS, MADD and ‘The War Against Drugs’. It seems our parent’s generation had too much fun and they didn’t want to share so they imposed all this crap on us.
2) Our wives don’t like conflict (except with us) so they forbid us from spanking or talking sternly to children. Even though you agreed to have children together and the understanding was there that spanking may need to be used- the deal changed as soon as Junior was born. You lost your rights – end of story!
3) You cannot use logic on a toddler. Toddlers do not understand the Laws of Physics. Toddlers believe trains can talk and fly. Unicorns are real, and a bath towel cape will make you impervious to injury. How the holy hell can you calmly discuss the disadvantages of trying to fly by jumping off of the roof to a Five year old who’s suited up with his Impervious bath towel and his flying footie pajamas? A little kid sees a piece of candy at the checkout and wants it real bad. Said little kid throws a temper tantrum after mom calmly explains to him that candy will deteriorate the enamel on his teeth and cause him dental problems later in life. Temper tantrum continues. That kid doesn’t give a rat’s ass about tooth decay or enamel. HE wants that piece of candy and is going to cry and whine until he gets it. Just say no! Like you did to sex and drugs in the 80’s and 90’s! It was easy for you back then, what has changed?