So, let’s cut to the chase. I’m dead-set on not raising silver-spoon-in-the-mouth, everything-I-touch-is-gold, don’t-know-the-meaning-of-no, where’s-my-trophy-for-finishing-in-fifteenth-place, undisciplined young men. I want to raise good little dudes with solid work ethics and impeccable manners. They’re still very young, sure, but I want them to know that there are rules and consequences and that what my wife and I say is the LAW. That’s right! THE LAW! If we say, “Time to go”, we go! If we say, “Use the potty and wash your hands”, use the potty and wash your hands! If we say, “Please don’t smash the television set with daddy’s hammer (hey, how’d you get that hammer?)”, don’t smash the television and I’m sorry I left my hammer out again! If we say, “Look, you’ve already flushed the toilet. You don’t have to flush it over and over and over and over and over again until it breaks”, then, yes, please listen to us and have mercy on the toilet. We. Are. The. LAW, damn it - the sovereign power that controls the minds, bodies, and manners of the children belonging to this household! So it has been written!
Written or not, our kids aren’t buying that nonsense. We’re doing our very best to be consistent, using the 1-2-3 Magic methods with varying results, and my wife and I always make sure to enforce the rules in harmony, so as not to contradict one another. Is it working? Hell no. But we’re not giving up. We’re all born bad, so I don’t expect these guys to immediately understand what’s up and fall in line. It’s going to take a lot of work, explanation, consistency, and love.
But, we’ll never issue spankings. Never.
Spare the switch, spoil the child, right? That was said or written by someone 1027 years ago, probably in the Middle East somewhere. There’s a myth that it’s from the Bible. It’s not. I’m thinking it was probably etched on some tablet that was used as a Dr. Spock-type manual or something. Maybe it was a slogan on someone’s family crest. I don’t know. I’ll Google it sometime, but for now I’m writing on a blog, so that’ll just have to wait. According to the elders in my life, it’s virtually impossible to teach children right from wrong without a slap on the rear end here and there. Interesting. Don’t get me wrong – it’s crossed my mind from time to time. Blatant insubordination tests your sanity and limits. It makes you think, “Hey, seeing as I’m covered in blue Toy Story toothpaste and I’ve been kicked repeatedly in the groin, it would feel so natural to smack this guy’s little tush right about now.” But, that’s not going to make either of us feel better; smacking a butt in the heat of a temper tantrum. In my heart of hearts, I don’t believe spanking sends the right message or teaches anyone any kind of lesson. Well, maybe it teaches the lesson that if someone steps out of line, you smack them. Or maybe it will send the message that “It looks like my parents are willing to hit me to get their point across.” Of course, I could be completely wrong and I wouldn’t be surprised. That’s 100% not out of the question. When it comes to raising these guys, I’m always questioning myself.
The spanking issue is controversial in some respects. There are convincing arguments from both sides (the spankers and non-spankers, to beat or not to beat). Both my wife and I were spanked as children. I can speak from my own experience that I was terrified of those spankings. My brother and I ALWAYS got into trouble together; a regular Bonnie and Clyde (he was the Bonnie, of course). When we were extra naughty (see: peeing in Zip Lock bags and pawning it off as lemonade to our younger cousin only to be stopped short of serving it by our horrified mother, disappearing without warning in an inflatable row boat across a lake traveled by water skiers and drunken motor boat enthusiasts en route to a draw bridge where people drown every year, huge fist fights and wrestling matches at the grocery store, resulting in the destruction of a Campbell’s Soup display, and shoplifting on the same day, and so on and so forth), our little rear ends met the wrath of ‘The Slipper’.
The Slipper was passed down to my father by my uncle, who had used it to whop his kids for years before bequeathing it to him. It had a nice, soft brown suede upper with a cozy, fuzzy-lined inside…and a thick, butt-reddening, message-sending business end in the form of a rubber sole. To my recollection, it didn’t even have a match. It was just a lonely old slipper without a partner whose “sole” purpose on this Earth was to dole out punishment and leave marks on the heinies of the insubordinate.
Upon the conclusion of our trial before the parental counsel (and absolutely no jury of our peers), we were told to go upstairs and get the slipper. Our hearts would beat fast and we cried and moaned (and maybe punched each other a few times) as we made our way to the “spanking chamber” (Mom and Dad’s bathroom). We’d fish out the slipper from Dad’s closet and pace around the bathroom until he arrived. When the bathroom door opened, we’d start the appeal process. It was never to any avail. This was not a Democracy – there was no due-process. We were going down no matter what we said. It is funny to think that we thought we may have a chance of talking our way out of the spanking, as if Dad would’ve said, “Y’know what, fellas? That’s a pretty darn good point. We never told you NOT to break all of the windows on that new house being built across the street. That’s our fault. Here’s $20. Why don’t you guys accept my apology and buy yourself some baseball cards. OH! And, before you go, why don’t you give ME the spanking. I deserve it.” That would’ve been pretty kick ass, but we weren’t very convincing lawyers (probably because we were sobbing and trying to catch our breath - I don't remember Johnnie Cochran using that method), and the slipper caning always commenced.
The set up for slipper spankings broke down like this. There was a coin flip of sorts to begin the proceedings. “All right. Which one of you is going first?” Bonnie and I would stare at each other for a minute and have a discussion through whimpers. Who went first last time? Honestly, it happened so rarely that we probably forgot. My Dad claims that he used the slipper less than a handful of times, and I know he’s right. They were just memorable, that’s all. Light spankings happened intermittently, sure, but corporal punishment in the form of slipper usage was doled out strictly for fitting crimes. Regardless, one of us would eventually choose to bite the bullet and go first. Honestly, going first had considerable advantages. Go first, and you get it out of the way. It meant that you didn’t have to stand there and watch your brother get his spanking, which only builds anticipation for your turn and is probably worse than the spanking itself: the IDEA of the spanking. And the God-awful noise. That rubber sole, in combination with the contact it made on your bare ass, and the echo chamber that was their bathroom, made for high drama. The raising of the slipper, the huge smack reverberating of the walls, your brother squealing – brutal. Going first was the move. Once you were done getting yours, you were too busy catching your breath to watch the other guy get his (Note: “Yours” probably consisted of three love taps at most, but put your hand in the way or try and block the slipper and you got another one).
Before we knew it, it was over and Dad was recapping why the slipper was necessary to further drill home his point (Don’t break stuff, Stay off of the roof, 911 is for emergencies only, etc.). We’d file out all red faced and sad. Fifteen minutes would pass and we’d be back out in the yard playing a lazy version of home run derby with a tennis ball and an aluminum bat (see: window damage, shingle damage, television antennae displacement, flower mutilation, fist fights). And then, one hour later…poof! It was as if “the slipper” had never happened and we were plotting our next sick and twisted scheme. I will say the scheme probably didn’t involve anything that got us spanked that particular day, so in that case a lesson was learned and the original offense was not repeated, but the new scheme was, in all likelihood, way worse.
I’m lucky to have parents that love me. They are amazing and, as I write this, I feel kinda guilty, as if I’m making them seem abusive or something. They weren’t in the least. It was the ‘80’s. Butt’s got spanked with slippers, seat belts were just sorta catching on, Big Macs were good for you, people smoked at the movies, on planes, and in the hospital, Spandex shorts got worn underneath basketball shorts…all sorts of craziness was going down. They taught us many a valuable lesson and I’m forever grateful. I'm sure they hated having to spanking us (I think). They love us, and they didn’t want us growing up to be self-involved, spoiled, silver-spoon-in-the-mouth, where’s-my-raise-for-being-a-mediocre-employee, how-dare-you-tell-me-no, don’t-you-know-who-I-think-I-am, waste-of-space derelicts.
So, I guess that we’ve decided that we’re not going to use the ‘ole slipper on our boys and there’ll be no physical punishment administered, even for major offenses. No, my wife and I are settling in for fifteen-plus years of good-old-fashioned psychological warfare. Why? Because we love our boys and we want them to learn right from wrong…via our clever, brainwashing methods. I look forward to 2043, when I get to hear what the boys have to say about how we raised them and how they’d never resort to such archaic methods of parenting. Never.
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