When I started this blog, I told myself I wouldn’t ever write about parenting. It’s too risky…with so many different styles and opinions of parenting, what is okay and what is unacceptable….I just didn’t want to go there. But Lord have mercy, if I didn’t almost say something to a woman in Kroger tonight, who was completely ignoring her son as he threw two bags of Cheetos on the floor and screamed as he stomped on one of them, I decided then that I would have to open up the laptop and vent a little bit.
First of all, WHAT IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE?? I enjoy a bit of psychology now and then….studying the right brain vs. left brain, personality traits and such. I also think a great deal of it is hogwash. As adoptive parents, we had to jump several unbelievably absurd hoops….including a Rorschach test. Have you done this? Looking at a blob of ink that basically looks like a poor bat got ran over by a mail truck, and you want to tell the test administrator that it looks like a poor bat got ran over by a mail truck, but you feel a huge obligation to come up with something more creative and intelligent. So you lie and say it looks like a lonely princess walking her horse in a vast meadow of aromatic wildflowers. But anyhoo, I digress. As I was saying, I enjoy learning about the brain….but I certainly don’t know that much about it. I am convinced, whether proven or not, that there is a section of the human brain that holds the capacity of knowing how to make common sense parenting decisions. When your child starts throwing bags of Cheetos and screaming while he stomps one of the bags into fine Cheeto dust, you do NOT just stand there continuing to read the back of a bag of tortilla chips. You just DON’T. Unless that special parenting part of your brain is missing, or injured. You just don’t.
I was in the AT&T store on the Friday before Spring Break, due to the fact that I had dropped my phone in the school parking lot (while skipping and whistling, as most teachers do as they leave for Spring Break) and busted my screen into approximately 227 tiny cracks. While in the store, listening to my short list of options, two boys (accompanied by their Mother) literally got into a brawl. The older one, probably 15 or so kicked the younger one–around 11 or 12– in the shin so hard that he dropped to the floor and watched as a knot formed. He laid there crying and moaning while the older boy just laughed. The Mother never even looked at them. At first I thought maybe she was deaf, and just couldn’t hear the ruckus. I almost tapped her on the shoulder to show off a little of the small amount of sign language I know–to let her know that one of her children needed medical attention. But she seemed to hear the AT&T guy just fine. Let me add that the AT&T guy was equally horrified by this event, as he later told me how close he came to saying something to her, and went on to tell me how his Momma would have “ripped a knot” in him if he had ever acted even half that bad in public.
I immediately came home to my daughter and husband, and gave my daughter a big wet kiss on the forehead. I was so proud of her at that moment, because I knew she would never act like that in public, at home, or anywhere for that matter. After explaining what brought about my thankfulness and the big wet kiss, you know what my child said to me?? She said, “Mommy, you and Daddy are really good parents.” The wisdom of my eight year old child brought tears to my eyes, and made me so thankful that the special part of my brain was in fact, there.
I’m not labeling my husband and I as good parents, as I don’t think that’s my job to do. But I guess I’m a hypocrite….. because I try real hard to not judge others, but I do–because I’m human and I fail and I do things that I shouldn’t–like look down on people who ignore their children and their children’s behavior. I guess that’s what bothers me the most. If they ignore their children when they are throwing tantrums, throwing food in the grocery store and kicking the snot out of each other, don’t they also ignore them when they are needing help with homework, hungry, or simply in need of a hug?
We don’t spank. But we have had very little reason to need to. Our daughter is a blessing straight from heaven in so many ways, that would be an entirely different blog altogether. My Momma didn’t spank me, but she had a “hickory.” A thin little branch off of a tree that I’m certain would have stung like the dickens had she ever used it. I had friends who got spanked with hands, wooden spoons and even fly swatters, and I was scared to death of every bit of it. Momma’s hickory laid on a small shelf in the laundry room. It hung there, right above the mop and the broom. I can still see it in my mind. But I must proudly say that, it had dust on it. She hardly ever had to touch it. It was the threat of that hickory that kept my little southern butt in line.
If I did something that my Momma didn’t like, she would bring out this “tone” in her voice. It was calm, slow, even a bit loving. In her sweet drawl, she would say something like, “Oh, I see. You want to behave like THAT? I see. Well, let me go get my hickory and I’ll be right back.”
By the time she got back (I think she walked real slow on purpose), I was gone. No where to be found. And you better believe that the next time I emerged, I was behaving so well that Mom couldn’t help but grin, and thank God, that hickory was back on the shelf. And whatever I was doing to get the threat of the hickory, I never did it again.
I’m an old child, and yes–I was spoiled rotten. But I knew how to behave. I knew if I ran wild through the Big Star grocery, or acted like a monkey in the Revco, my Momma would be sure to throw in a smooth comment as we loaded our items into the Chevrolet. “Mary Jane, when we get home, I need you to put these paper towels in the laundry room. You know, where I keep my hickory.” So I knew my limits and expectations. Even though my Momma was Wonder Woman and I believe that most of us can only dream to be the woman she is, I still believe that no matter WHAT the circumstance, people should be able to find a way to make our society a place where no one should be uncomfortable around someone else’s child due to their unacceptable behavior.
Of course now that I’ve shared these thoughts publicly, my child will probably ram a shopping cart into a parked car while cursing. But (knock on wood)…so far, so good. I’m proud of her. I’m proud of us, and I’m proud of our parents and their parents. It’s passed down from generation to generation. And yeah, that’s another thing that scares me. The Cheeto throwing screamers will be the grown-ups when I’m an old woman. Sigh. But my kid will also be one of those grown-ups. I’m sure your children will be super contributions as well. So, my friends, there is still hope.
God bless our future, y’all.
Kickin' & Screamin' 