sabato, settembre 08, 2012

Cpl. Punishment

All in other people's business at the moment. Usually these days I sleep like a heavy, heavy brick but last night spent a good couple of hours lying there worrying, and almost all of that mostly about other people (Ren had had a fucking acrobatic day, which always reassures me - the kid's a good mover most of the time but when the wiggles are non-stop it's the only thing that makes me think everything's gonna be fine). One family in particular, who we'd had cake with that afternoon, with two young kids. There'd just been a conflagration that finished with the dad smacking the boy, and we arrived when all was calm again.

I don't really have two minds about smacking kids. I don't know if I'm going to do it, but if I do it, there's no way I'll be able to see it as anything but a failure on my part. I was smacked a lot as a child - well, not a lot, but as a fairly normal part of my existence as a fathered person - my brothers even more, and while we turned out magnificently I don't think it did us any good at all, and I still feel angry and resentful when I remember it. And as an adult, remembering it and remembering what brought it on, it was never something that I can see excusing it as proportionate - never when I was hurting somebody else and needed to be stopped all of sudden, never when something shockingly dangerous had nearly just happened and I needed to be taught never, ever to let something dangerous like that nearly happen again, or never for whatever big horrible things it is children do, some of which I certainly did. It was when my father was pissed off. And while I respect my father a lot, I don't respect that at all. It was a form of incontinence. And with this family, it's the same. It's when the father is pissed off.

Nonetheless, while not having two minds, I'm finding all this a little confusing at the moment. He's a good man, a good friend, his marriage is always semi-on the rocks, and this is exactly the sort of thing that'll get him stripped of custody if his wife chose, because even he admits that when he smacks, it's because he's flown off the handle, not because he calmly and coolly reckons it's a good idea. And at the same time, I don't know what would make things better. I don't have children; I've never had to emotionally go to the edge the way a pissed-off parent does. I think he's making a big mistake making smacking his kids part of his parenting strategy, in terms of his future relationship with his kids and wife, but it's not as though I have a range of tried-and-tested techniques to offer as alternatives.

You know, I think i don't mind being in other people's business at the moment because it distracts me from dwelling too much on my own semi-imaginary problems. I'm starting to understand gossip a little better.

8 commenti:

e.f. bartlam ha detto...

We were spanked as youngins but it was a formal kind of thing. Like my Daddy never just whopped us out of the blue. In fact, I think my Daddy only spanked me once and that was because I ran from him.

My Momma did all the whipping and it was afte a whippable offense had been committed...like going down to the lake without adult supervision. She always went back to the bedroom first and I can still hear the belts knocking against one anther as she made her selection :).

It wasn't so much the whips (which really weren't that big a deal) it was the dreadful process. I think that was the idea. There was only two times she flew off the handle and, I think, really wanted to hit me while she was doing it. Once, I because I didn't stop this kid from tossing kittens into a kids swimming pool (they survived ultimately unharmed)...the other time was a misunderstanding and she was completely in the wrong. I'd would've taken 100 whippings before I would have left my Grandaddy's tools ungaurded.

Anyway, I don't have any hang ups about the whippings...as far as I know. It's my mother who now claims I never deserved any of them...bullsh*t! Just the one. The other's are mine. I earned them.

My sister spanks her boys, or did...and them boys are precious. I've spanked Blake a few times and will do it again (never without a clear warning...I am going to spank you if). The problem with him is that he takes it as a challange...he has a head like granite.

I'm certainly not going to hit him anywhere near hard enough to penetrate that so, we've had to come up with other methods. Confiscation of toys seems to be working fairly well. I guess consistency...doing what you threaten...is the main thing.

Nothing works all the time.

e.f. bartlam ha detto...

Take two...I will beat him with a board...might waterboard him if he's pulls another stunt like he did during Communion this morning.

Mistress La Spliffe ha detto...

What'd he do?

e.f. bartlam ha detto...

He tried to make a break for it at the alter. He's been going up there for four years and never tried anything like it.

He was bein' squirmy the whole service.

Of course, I had him out til midnight Saturday night so...:).

Mistress La Spliffe ha detto...

Good lord. How early do you people start communionizing?

e.f. bartlam ha detto...

He just gets a little blessing...though he has started askin, "when I'm gon get some wine drink?"

We've been takin him up since he was tiny. He's always just takin in the spectical but Sunday he was wired for sound. He was fired up that night wantin to play football and wrestle. When his head hit the pillow he was gone.

Baywatch ha detto...

don't forget the bar of soap in the mouth. always effective.

gossip is a gift from god.

Mistress La Spliffe ha detto...

And I've heard an orange in a sock won't leave any marks.

Nah, I'm gonna discipline my kids the old-fashioned way - degrees of shame extreme to the point of neurosis with just a soupcon of unbroken negative reinforcement.