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sonjajadeOK, so I'm doing my early spring ritual: pulled out a lawn chair, found the warmest, sunniest place on the patio, and watch my 3 dogs raise hell and play in the yard. Today I'm sitting out there and this woman who lives down the street is walking her 3 yr old boy and her dog. My dogs are going fuckin nuts barking at them. Then I notice that she was carrying the kid, but had dropped the leash. So she puts the kid down to get the dog and the toddler has a HUGE temper tantrum. She's trying to rationalize with a 3 yr old... Trying to get him to agree to continue walking with her, I guess make it feel to the kid that it was his choice to keep walking. (Me personally, I'd have picked him back up and told him he had no choice in the matter. After all in real life there are many things that you are not given a choice on...) So she walks away from him and the kids starts SCREAMING at the top of his lungs in the impossibly high pitch that only toddlers can manage. She walks back to the kid and tries ti "talk it out" with him. (again, had it been me, either we would have been home already and he'd be getting a nap, or we'd be almost there and I'd have swatted his ass!) The woman talked with her kid for 20 minutes... I'm sorry, I can't wrap my brain around trying to "talk it out" with a baby. Finally they get walking again, and then this was what got me even more than the "conversation" thing. Little boy sees a wind chime in my neighbor's tree. This tree is like right by the front door and very close to the house. Little boy starts whining about how he wants to clang the thing, so mom lets him walk up to the front door, jump off the first step of the house and try to swat the clanger. He misses and almost breaks his face in the grass. So she picks him up and lets him make the noise, then they walk around to the side of the house and THE KID IS PEEPING IN THE WINDOWS. I'm sorry, when I was a kid, my mom told us to stay on the sidewalk, and not to go in people's yards unless we knew the person who lived there, and even if we did know the person, to knock on the door and ask if it was ok to be in their yard playing. When this little boy grows up, is he going to know that you can't just walk up to people's houses and do whatever the fuck you want to on their property? And THEN!! Next door to my neighbor is her daughter and they leave their garage open so their kids can go in through that door rather than the front door after school so they don't track their shoes through the house. The little boy runs from his mother up into their garage and starts playing with things that belong to kids he doesn't know in a house that he is unfamiliar with. I was fuming mad. Actually I was hoping she'd come over and let him get into my tree with like 8 windchimes in it, 'cause I was hoping to chase them off my property with a few choice words for the mother. I could just see this kid later in life, doing whatever, whenever, because his mom didn't tell him there are rules, and if you don't follow them there are consequences. He'll prolly end up being some punk-ass that gets in trouble all the time because no one ever made him mind.
I got spanked with a biker belt (twin rows of silver grommets all the way through the entire length of a 3" wide leather belt) when I was a kid. My mother used a fly swatter, and used the metal end when I was really bad. My last spanking was when I was 12 yrs old, and that's when I figured out if I just listened and did what I was supposed to do, I would never get in trouble again. That was when my grades took off and since that point had gotten honor roll every time, I got all kinds of rewards from my parents because they trusted me and knew I was a good kid (like I could stay out late and go places so long as I always let them know if I was leaving to go somewhere else and a phone number they could reach me at). My sister was raised without spanking, as mom and dad were afraid of giving her an asthma attack. I graduated high school, didn't do drugs or party like crazy, was responsible and stayed away from people I knew would get me in trouble... My sister was having sex at age 13, smoking pot by 14, snorting coke by 16, got raped and dropped out of high school at 17, got engaged to this jailbird thug who nearly got her killed in a high speed chase that ended with this idiot's car wrapped around a telephone pole, knocked up at 19 after having gone to an orgy but she lost the baby from partying so hard, then she got knocked up again at 23 by a guy who ran out on her, then smoked pot the entire she was pregnant.... I'm not saying all kids will end up like my sister if there's no corporal punishment, but there has to be some kind of rules that parents are willing to stick with, otherwise they aren't doing their kids any good. I certainly respect parents who have found a way to discipline their kids without spanking. I know as I near my own journey to parenthood I plan on doing what I can before resorting to spanking, but rest assured I will only spank with my hand, never with a belt or any other kind of object.
I got spanked with a biker belt (twin rows of silver grommets all the way through the entire length of a 3" wide leather belt) when I was a kid. My mother used a fly swatter, and used the metal end when I was really bad. My last spanking was when I was 12 yrs old, and that's when I figured out if I just listened and did what I was supposed to do, I would never get in trouble again. That was when my grades took off and since that point had gotten honor roll every time, I got all kinds of rewards from my parents because they trusted me and knew I was a good kid (like I could stay out late and go places so long as I always let them know if I was leaving to go somewhere else and a phone number they could reach me at). My sister was raised without spanking, as mom and dad were afraid of giving her an asthma attack. I graduated high school, didn't do drugs or party like crazy, was responsible and stayed away from people I knew would get me in trouble... My sister was having sex at age 13, smoking pot by 14, snorting coke by 16, got raped and dropped out of high school at 17, got engaged to this jailbird thug who nearly got her killed in a high speed chase that ended with this idiot's car wrapped around a telephone pole, knocked up at 19 after having gone to an orgy but she lost the baby from partying so hard, then she got knocked up again at 23 by a guy who ran out on her, then smoked pot the entire she was pregnant.... I'm not saying all kids will end up like my sister if there's no corporal punishment, but there has to be some kind of rules that parents are willing to stick with, otherwise they aren't doing their kids any good. I certainly respect parents who have found a way to discipline their kids without spanking. I know as I near my own journey to parenthood I plan on doing what I can before resorting to spanking, but rest assured I will only spank with my hand, never with a belt or any other kind of object.
