A brief thought concerning corporal punishment

On April 4, 2020 By Luther M. SilerIn ParentingLeave a comment

I basically forgot to blog today. I’ve done an astonishingly good job avoiding the Internet across the board beyond what was necessary to get my last little bit of grading done before Spring Break– yeah, I’m on Spring Break, somehow– and other than the couple of hours it took to do that I’ve basically either had my nose in a book or been sitting in front of the PS4. Not a bad way to spend a Saturday where I can’t leave the house, mind you, but I seriously just had a sort of “internet? what?” moment a bit ago.

We have decided to watch the entire Fast and Furious series while I am home, by the way. Right now we’re about 20 minutes into the first one and literally every object on the screen looks like it was filmed separately on a greenscreen. I don’t understand why this movie looks so terrible. I may end up having to livetweet a few of these, we’ll see.

Anyway.

Something occurred to me tonight as we were putting the boy to bed, and this is going to be one of those lead-ins where the lead-in is longer than the actual point of the post– but I swat my kid on the ass as a joke all the time, right? I’ve never spanked him, literally never laid a finger on him in anger, and neither has my wife. But I swat the kid on the ass as a joke all the time, particularly as I’m putting him to bed. Most nights end with a hug and a swat on the ass. And tonight, for no particular reason, I swatted him a little harder than usual, to the point where I noticed it. Did he? No. Not at all. He squealed like he usually does– it’s part of the game, basically– but if he had any idea that I’d swatted him any harder than I usually do he didn’t react to it.

Now, again, I’ve never spanked him and never hit him with the intent to hurt him. Not once. And the thought that floated through my head and triggered this piece is that if I did decide I was going to spank my kid, with the intent of it being painful and in some way theoretically modifying and/or punishing his behavior, I would have to hit him harder than I have ever hit anyone before. Which, okay, isn’t saying a lot, as while I’ve broken up dozens of fights over the years I haven’t been in one since fourth grade– but …

Yeah. I’m not doing that to my son.

That’s all.

In which I dodge a bullet

On December 5, 2013 By Luther M. SilerIn ParentingLeave a comment

Had a bad moment with the boy the other day.

He’s been throwing things lately. This, in and of itself, isn’t such a big deal; toddlers throw things. We encourage throwing when it’s a ball, so long as he’s throwing to and not at, and discourage throwing just about everything else. Generally, something along the lines of “Don’t throw things!” or “We don’t throw books” or “You’ll hurt the dog” has been good enough to get him to stop. Rarely– I mean, it, rarely— we have had to tell him twice.

He is almost 2 1/2, just for the record.

The other day, he threw his fork at dinnertime. This earned a sharper reprimand than usual as throwing a metal fork is somewhat more dangerous than throwing many other objects. We picked it up off the floor and gave it back to him and he threw it again. This time, he missed my head by maybe an inch.

I… reacted somewhat strongly. Verbally only, mind you, but more severely than perhaps he’s used to. He was done eating anyway, so we washed him up and then told him to walk around the table and pick up his fork and give it to me. Which he did– mostly. He walked around the table. He picked up the fork from the ground. I held out my had for him to give it to me.

And he gets this look on his face.

Oh hell no, boy. Don’t you even think what you’re thinking right now, because goddammit I’ve never spanked a kid in my life and I swear to god I may not be able to stop myself if you throw a fork at my face right now.

Out comes the teacher voice.

“Give. The fork. To me. Now.”

He very clearly spends a moment considering his options, and hands me the fork.

Which… good, because I really didn’t know where I was going after that, and heading into a potential You Really Need to Understand I’m Serious Right Now moment without a game plan is never a good idea, either in my classroom or in my house. I’m ambivalent about spanking right now; I don’t see that in general it’s going to do much good with a 2-year-old who wouldn’t know what “I’m going to spank you if you do that” even means, and in general I’d prefer to never hit my kid. But given a choice between hit my kid and have him believe that throwing sharp things in my face is okay… well, I’d prefer to dodge the issue altogether and not have to face that choice, actually.

I may need to spend some time reading up on discipline with toddlers.

You remember the tree that came down in the storm, right? Our insurance company estimated the cost to have it cut up and hauled away at $700, which doesn’t hit our deductible. The first estimate we got was two grand, and even getting that guy out to look at our shit was a huge pain in the ass because of all the much-more-important bigger jobs that were available all around the northern part of the state.

I’ve got a guy coming out tomorrow who will do the job for $575. Which is nowhere near $2000, and makes me very freaking happy.

Cue the normal concerns that you have when you get lowballed, of course, but if they do the job well I’m going to be recommending the guy to everyone I know. I may knock down other people’s trees to drum up more work for him.

Terrible decisions: interlude

On September 7, 2013September 7, 2013 By Luther M. SilerIn idiocy, Parenting1 Comment

Lowe’s wants $2000, sans material costs, to tile our bathroom, which has 37 square feet of floor space and less than 70 square feet of shower wall space. The entire budget for the bathroom is $2500, so… looks like I get to learn how to tile.

I can do this. Really. Honest.

While we were at Lowe’s today getting bad news, the boy was sort of misbehaving. Not really in any large way, just in that toddler “I want to do things that I find interesting, but are not compatible with my health or your desires” sort of way. He got a bit screechy about wanting to push “his cart” (he’s two; everything is his lately) in some direction other than toward the front door after we decided it was time to leave, and I made an Executive Daddy Decision, put my screeching son in the cart, and we took off, mildly embarrassed at the terrible sounds my poor, oppressed little boy was making.

Then we got to the front of the store, where there was a father with three little kids with him. Two boys: the oldest, maybe nine, then maybe a six or seven year old, and an infant of indeterminate gender in a stroller. All three were screaming and crying. The two older boys wanted candy, and were bawling at Daddy’s refusal to buy them candy, repeatedly insisting that he justify his non-purchasing-candy ways for them. The infant was also screaming, probably just because its brothers were.

My son isn’t old enough for me to have had to make any real decision about physically disciplining him yet. I am ambivalent about whether spanking an older child is ever a useful practice. I am certain that it is worse than useless with a two-year-old.

And I’m not sure whether I think this guy should have full-on slapped both of his kids in their faces for their stupid, embarrassing public display of bullshit or whether I respect him for his restraint. One way or another, he got out of the store without beating either of his spoiled-ass kids, although I can’t vouch for what happened when he got them back to the car.

“I forgive you,” I whispered into my son’s ear.

Maybe I don’t want him to get much older.