It wasn't until I had kids for awhile before I realized I was doing things I once said I'd never do before. It is so easy to look at another family and think, oh, we'll never be like that, before you really are like that. When I was pregnant with our son, friends of my husband came to visit with their two small children, I believe they were 2 and 4 years old. At that time, we lived in a tiny apartment in Manhattan and were not set up for children at all, certainly not for toddlers. But, we didn't know that. We thought our 750 square foot apartment was huge (compared to our last two places in the city it was pretty big - it was about 10 feet wide and 75 feet long, no doors, what is known as a 'railroad'). We probably told our unfortunate friends, who were crossing the ocean to stay with us, that we had plenty of room. Uhg. If I'd known then what I know today I would never have considered inviting them to stay with us in such a place, or else if we did invite them I would have prefaced it with dramatic warnings, like, you will be forced to sleep together in one room, there will be no door to shut and separate yourselves, you will be staying with non-parents who think they understand parenting because they are pregnant and reading lots of parenting magazines and what to be expected books . . . Oh, they deserved a warning. I think at one point I actually expressed concern that their boys might pee on the furniture when they were running *gasp* diaper-less after a bath. Man, I ought to repent for that one.
Anyway, the point is, or was, that the Mom was having a birthday and all she wanted was to go out shopping by herself. My husband and I whispered together about how sad this family was that all the Mom wanted in all of the bright big city was to get to go out alone for a few hours and try on clothes, totally unmolested by her kids. All she really wanted was to get away from her family. Just for a little bit. Oh, we said, we'll never be like that . . . we laugh about it now, we laugh at who we used to be.
Today I spanked my son.
One of my I nevers. It was horrible and I have no idea if it was the right thing. Here is what happened - he bit his baby sister and broke the skin. She bled. Now this is probably my fault because baby sister has a bit of a biting issue and we have laughed that she learned it from our awful little biting dog. So now big brother may think that, hey, she bites and they think it is funny. Or else, maybe he thought, hey, she bites, I'll bite her back. Or who knows . . . the thing is, he did it 2 days ago and left a big, mouth shaped bruise. I gave him a time out, we talked about it and then we talked about it some more. He apologized, he studied the bruise, I thought it was a done deal. But I thought wrong.
When I discovered the bite today, I took little sister, who was sobbing her hurt cry into her brother's room. He was standing with his hands over his eyes, his admission of guilt. I asked, "did you bite your sister?" he said, "Sure, I did." I showed him what he'd done and said, "now you will have a spanking." But first I dressed her wound and calmed her down. And then I went back to his room and sat on the bed and pulled him across my lap old school style and gave him 3 spanks.
Oh God.
Parenting is so hard.
If somebody, like a random stranger, drew my child's blood I would totally flip out on them but what do you do when it is your own child who has drawn the blood? Uhg. I resorted to drastic measures. Drastic Measures.
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I don't think spanking is too drastic. Parents have been spanking their kids for thousands of years. In fact, only recently has it been looked at as child abuse, and look at the kids out there now! Spank away, I say. Don't feel too bad about it. He needs to know what mommy says goes.
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