Spare The Rod Spoil The Child....

Happy angry Monday folks. I call it angry Monday cuz most people I know HATE Mondays. Mondays do indeed stink! I used to look forward to Mondays back when I was working where I wanted to work. I guess it's true what they say, "love what you do & never work a day in your life". I guess most of us are doing the opposite "hate what you do & feel like an under paid under valued slave secretly wishing you could give your boss a paper cut!" WOOSAH! Breath, it could be worse. We could have NO job. So on with my observation of the week.

My mom always told me that the bible said something like "Spare the rod, spoil the child". I'd like to put a new spin on that, spare the child....that's it! That saying just SCREAMS child abuse to me. Probably because my pops used an actual rod & SPARED NADA using it upside my head. Mom's neither. She used anything in her weight peripheral that she could lift to hit me with. I wasn't a bad kid, I just had a mouth piece. As you can tell. I wasn't outside causing trouble. I did what I was told for the most part. I mean i got into SOME careless situations. Like I used to LOVE the smell of fire. Don't ask me why, but I was amazed by it & used to set small fires...Damn I was a baby arsonist son! All bad lookin back on it. Needless to say my mom beat my ARSE! She spared no expense or ROD beatin my butt to get me out of that bad habit. Looking back, it was just what I needed to keep me from growing up and becoming a serial arsonist or accidentally hurting myself or someone else. Good job mama.

Now that I am a parent I find myself in that odd place of wanting to be my kids best friend, but also having to discipline them. I hate seeing the fear on their faces when they mess up & I come home. Everyone wants to tell me when they were not behaving & I have to try to discipline them on 2nd hand info. I wasn't there so I don't know how sever my discipline should be. The hardest part is, I am the only disciplinarian. The boys mom gripes at them, but her best discplinary action is to say "I'm going to tell your dad". Same goes for her fam & mine. So when I get home from a long day at work or school, I have to build up the energy to punish them. Now you all know, when you come home from a long day, you still have the stain of the day heavily on your shoulders. You are pissed at your boss or co workers, maybe someone cut you off on the road making you miss your exit or a customer cursed you out. What ever it is, you are usually not in the best mood when you get home. So the poor kids end up getting the brunt of that.

So over the weekend, my kids stayed with my sister & my youngest decided to do his own thing. My youngest is a free spirit & usually tries to do what ever he wants to do. Then when he gets in trouble, he cries louder than everyone. I allow my boys to make mistakes. No one is perfect, but if I don't put my foot down, I am not doing my job. I am not protecting or teaching them anything. I took a child development class last semester & my final report was on child abuse. I haven't spanked my kids since doing that assignment instead choosing to take things away from the kids as punishment. The truth is, that worked WAY better than spankings. It made them start calling me a softy & talk back sometimes, but for the most part, those mistakes started becoming far & in between. Now back to this weekend. So my sister tells my sons & nieces to stay in front of the house where she can see them. She lives in a safe place, so there were no worries. Isaiah decides to run off. This of course freaks my sister out. But he was safe all was good & dandy & she sure enough wanted to beat his behind! Which I woulda had no problem with.

ENTER DADDY! This boy came with every lame excuse he could think of trying to convince me that he didn't know he was being bad. He 1st said "I was racing an invisible person & beat him over there daddy", flashing those adorable cheek bones. He also said "I thought I was allowed to run over there if I run super fast" & lastly his favorite excuse that NEVER works, "My brain told me to go over there". This kid needs to stop listening to his brain cuz it only gets him into trouble. So I gave him a choice. I told him that he could either get spanked or no video games all week. Scared as hell he chose no video games for the week. SO I lectured him, about the things he does that gets him into trouble. Told him that the last thing I want to do is spank my kids or make them sad. That all I ask is they pay attention & be respectful to people. To stay focused & to be honest.

He had this terrified look on his face the whole conversation. I asked if he was more scared of me than strangers & he said yes! I told him that isn't how it's supposed to be. My job is to protect him. He shouldn't be afraid of me if he is doing what he's supposed to. He said that I am mean sometimes, because I yell when he makes mistakes & that I don't play with him enough. Gut punch right there! But I told him that if he promises to try harder to be a good boy, I will try harder to not be so mean & that all I want is for him to have a happy life. If he's happy I am happy.

SO finally after a long winded daddy speech about putting himself in danger by not paying attention, he was bored outta his mind & decided to take the spanking to get it over with. So I spank him, he is crying hysterically like I am actually hitting his butt with a bat (like my dad used to). So after 5 minutes of crying he got to play his game & completely forgot he was spanked. Now in this case I did not spare the rod, but did I still spoil my child? Did he actually learn his lesson? I feel like a spanking & taking his games woulda been excessive because again I wasn't there. But I feel like I should have stuck to my guns & just banned the games. That would have been more effective in the long run. Lesson learned, some situations sparing the rod is the right thing to do & I think this was one of them....


Your thoughts?
DJ