Wednesday, March 02, 2005

Spare the Rod, Spoil the Child...

My granddaddy just used a switch.

7 comments:

Nick said...

Damn, what ever happened to using your hand, belt or fly swatter? Oh wait I just saw the "hand is for loving" crap. I mean, those things are conviently within reach during the fit of fury. Sending a check in the mail, the anticipation and long weeks of waiting for the post, opening the package, calling the child to kneel before you! This is just twisted pre-meditated horse shit.
Hitting kids when you're mad is just messed up--go hit the refrigerator or something.

Ha--I just realized that you said your grandaddy--'cause your dad wasn't around to do it! I guess that's one good thing about that...I remember only one time that one of my grandparents slapped me--I was trying to watch a naughty show on cable. It really shocked me! Mom, Dad, yeah that's normal--but Grandpa--whoa, lookout I must've ticked him off super time!

Geoff said...

You're lucky (or maybe not as bad as I was). I got spanked by my mom's parents many times--mostly by grandma (she used: switches, hoses, fly-swatters, hands, pie plates, a spatula, her Bible, a piece of twine with glass in it, the dog, a carton of Egg Beaters, a jug of King's Syrup, a metal can of Gibbles chips, her Oldsmobile Cutlass Surpreme, a four-foot aluminum Xmas tree on a rotating base with red, green, and blue lights shining up into tinsel-colored leaves, model trains (HO and Lionel), a piece of the True Cross, a Jimmy Swaggert Prayer Key, the piano, a hymnbook, and a set of cassettes featuring Ray Brubaker's God's News Behind the News).

I even got whooped once by great grandma when she was 86--I was the only one of 12 grandchildren and 18 great-grandchildren to get smacked by her! She chased me around the dining room table with one of these and then bludgeoned me into a coma. That's ok because I was her favorite anyhow.

Mom used the belt or her hand, Dad, when he was around, used his fists.

Nick said...

I don't think I was any more well behaved than you, just had a much better situation. Shooting the next door neighbor in the shoulder with a broadhead arrow didn't win me teenager of the year...and on the other hand I'm sure you were a pretty good kid too. My grandparents just really were nice to us I guess. Mom and Dad were nice too, just that they had to put up with it all of the time. They never got to harsh with it, I just remember hand from Dad and flyswatter from Mom because she didn't have as much oomph. I don't even recall any traumatic events so it can't have been all that. Shows how much good it does anyway. Wait, I do remember one time my sister and I were jumping around like a bunch of animals, insanely dodging swats from the flyswatter in the pantry--we all ended up laughing because it was so stupid anyway. So, yeah, I definitely did not have the same experience as you, but I was no stranger to getting spanked. Neither was T for that matter. Actually my favorite method I've witnessed comes from my sisternlaw--her solution is to have them do it--she barks an order and they solemnly smack their own mouths!!!

All of which doesn't really matter--if you're mail ordering torture devices for children...

Geoff said...

I was pretty well-behaved until I became a teenager, and then I decided since I got whooped all the time anyway that I might as well start acting out. Mom accused me of smoking pot continuously for five years before I finally did it, figuring I might as well since I was always punished for it anyhow.

That's good training when your kids hit themselves! Does your sister-in-law tell them to hit themselves and then say "why are you hitting yourself?" and then have them hit themselves again, and say "why are you hitting yourself?"

Each hour I spent in church=three hours of bad behavior when I got home.

My stepdad stuck a dart in his best-friend's forehead once, but I never heard of anyone getting shot with an arrow before! That rules.

Nick said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Nick said...

I druther edit, but I'll have to delete.

Nah, she doesn't do that--but maybe you should apply for the job. I like the way you think!!! They might have to kneel and face the wall for some quality time but for the most part it's nothing. They get so wild anyway it's great when we're out there--four boys ages 7 to 2--it's a blast. 90% of the Vietnamese that I can speak are admonitions--Bad! So Bad! Fold your arms! Fart! I sound cooler when I say it in another language.

I'd like to say that M. Little shot at me first and grazed my thigh but I think that's the story that I made up to tell my parents. I do remember the arrow sinking into his left shoulder, him grabbing the wound and stumbling down to his knees in front of our house. It only went in a couple inches--metal head, but for target practice. His mom videotaped our wedding, she worked at the courthouse. I definitely remember not being in control, not being able to resist shooting. This is why I sympathize very much with T when he says "I dunno" or "I can't control myself". I know EXACTLY what the goofy impulses are that he is describing and I feel bad because I know EXACTLY where he gets them from. I just don't want him to have the same stress and anxiety I felt when growing up. I struggle to help him out so that he won't have as hard a time as I did--not that it was really such a hard time, it just felt like it. I'm thinking he doesn't take it too seriously which is good--he gets the good stuff from someone else...we know!

Geoff said...

I remember you using the Vietnamese for scolding when I was over for Shaolin Soccer. T. almost hit me in the face with some plastic robot and you gave him a stern string of southeast Asia syllables.

I wonder--does that cause a linguistic re-wiring of the brain? "Uh-oh, I hear Vietnamese,"=guilt, fear, anxiety? The only equivalent from my experience is Mom using my full name. I always knew she was mad then, and to this day if someone uses my full name I feel anxious.

I think you and L.O. and Conniption and D.E. are really great with your youngins--most of my pals are great parents with interesting youngsters; all of you seem to have improvised your own approaches too.