• A touchy subject

    October 6, 2009

    Ever since I’ve been blogging, I occasionally get comments alluding to the importance of spanking children, and then other people comment in response, advising against the practice. I find this interesting—the polarization, the undercurrent of strong emotions. No one seems to ride the fence on this matter, except for me.

    Here’s what I think:
    *Spanking isn’t evil.
    *Spanking isn’t the best option.
    *Spanking can be extremely detrimental.
    *Spanking is lazy discipline.
    *Spanking can be helpful.

    And…
    *Parents who spank can be excellent parents (and vice versa).
    *Parents who don’t spank can be excellent parents (and vice versa).
    *Parenting to be The Best is too stressful—it’s more encouraging, practical, and realistic to strive to be Good Enough.

    I also think:
    *It is dangerous to advise people to spank because you don’t know their situation and all the variables.
    *It is important to encourage parents to think of creative ways to discipline children.
    *It is unhelpful to stand in judgement of other parents.

    And…
    *To assume that parents will always be consistent and calm when administering spanks is a dangerous assumption—we are all deeply and irrevocably human.
    *There are an infinite number of personalities and temperaments (both parents and children alike)—to assume that we know all about the different types of children based on our two or four or eight children is another dangerous assumption.

    How do all these beliefs play out in my life? I try to discipline my children using other methods besides spanking, but sometimes, in my less glamorous moments, I spank my kids. I am not proud of that fact. I don’t think it is effective or helpful, and I feel lazy when I do it. So I keep pushing myself to try to rise above that inclination—sometimes I succeed fabulously and sometimes I fail horribly.

    I don’t think spanking (or not spanking) makes (or breaks) a good parent-child relationship; from my experience, it’s the quality time, among other things, that cements the bonds. (My parents spanked me, and not usually in a gentle, calm, consistent way, either; we have a very close relationship.) Spanking can be a deterrent to deep relationships, but so can many other things—a too-busy household, sarcasm, the inability/refusal to celebrate each other, and a focus on materialism, just to name a few.

    I have not even come close to fleshing out all the information and perspectives surrounding this very touchy subject. Everybody offers a different slant, a different reason, for what they believe. I would love to hear what you think.

    A Most Important Note! Please, please, please, comment with gentleness. Remember, we can all better understand each other when we share bits of our own stories, our insecurities, struggles, mistakes, and hurts; if you feel a need to criticize, please be vulnerable first.

    About One Year Ago: Donuts!!!

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  • Serious parenting

    October 5, 2009

    Mr. Handsome and I take our role as parents very seriously. We think it’s of the utmost importance to teach our children what’s important, things such as playing in the dirt, washing dishes, saying please and thank you, going to church, and reading lots of books. Last night we added something to that list, something that’s just as fundamental as playing with sticks and doing chores, but sadly enough, is so often missed by many other well-intentioned parents. Last night we became enlightened parents.

    We sat our children down and introduced them to the glories of Napoleon Dynamite.

    The kids were spell-bound. And slightly confused. They watched (everyone but The Baby Nickel who repeatedly expressed his intense dislike of the movie) intently and somewhat blankly, trying to puzzle out the reason for Mr. Handsome’s chuckling and my hooting. Miss Beccaboo took it literally (everyone was being mean to poor Napoleon!), but Yo-Yo was able to catch the nuances and see the humor behind it.

    The kids’ favorite part? La Fawnduh’s googly eyes.

    My favorite part? Napoleon’s free-fall from the chainlink fence.

    At the end of the movie I informed the children that we would be watching this movie every year between now and when they move out of the house. “Really?” they asked, incredulous at their good fortune.

    “Absolutely,” I said. “I expect you to have memorized most of the lines. And I want you all to learn how to fall over a fence like that, body horizontal with the ground, feet waggling. Got it?”

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  • A lot of babble, and some cookies

    October 1, 2009

    I woke up at 4:00 this morning and thought to myself: Hey, Self! If you get out of bed right now, you could go downstairs and make coffee and have two uninterrupted hours of writing time! And then I rolled over and back to sleep I went. I woke up at 6:00, mad at myself for squandering two good writing hours.

    But then this afternoon, after eight hours of managing the zoo I call my home, I phoned Mr. Handsome at work and said to him, “Hey, Honey! How about we do a changing of the guard this evening?”

    And he said, in his super-enthusiastic, gravelly-due-to-a-cold voice, “You mean, you wanna go write?”

    And I said, “YES!” And then in a smaller, meeker, slightly whiny voice, “Ple-e-ease?”

    And he said, stoically, gallantly, and magnanimously, “Sure.”

    And I said, “Aw, honey, you are so sah-weet! I loves you!” ‘Cause that’s what you’re supposed to say when you get your way (and ’cause I do).

    So here I am, in my room, two hours to type, a glass of white wine on the bed stand. Though I guess you would call it a “nightstand,” not a “bed stand.” Though now that I’ve written it, neither of them makes any sense. Except that it isn’t a stand upon which you place things like beds, but it is a stand upon which you place things at night. So I’ll go with nightstand from now on. It’s important to clear things like this up.

    (And no, we are not going to have a conversation on bad prepositional usage. Absolutely not. Because I like to whip prepositions around like they ain’t nobody’s business, least of all yours. Discussion closed.)

    Ah, me. The frivolity that comes about as a result of having two hours of free time. Do you have any idea what would happen if all the world’s mothers (and more specifically, the mothers of young children) were given, simultaneously, two hours of free time? It would rock our world. Literally. I firmly believe that there would be such a bubbling of insane happiness that our little blue and green earth would be jolted right out of its orbit.

    I don’t know about you (and here I’m addressing any mothers of young children who may be reading this post), but I get so blasted tired of thinking about Inane Parenting Problems as though they were Life-and-Death Issues. The situations are really no big deal (thus the reason I called them “inane” [obviously]), but if they aren’t dealt with swiftly and appropriately you just might go absolutely insane. Thus the reason they are life-and-death issues.

    Example #1: Yo-Yo’s room
    It is a disaster. Even though he has a mandatory fifteen minutes of clean-up time (almost) every morning, it always looks like it was hit by a cyclone: shoes, clothes, papers, cards, books, Legos, rocks, even bubbly tar that he scraped off a road and molded into lumps that have since lost their lumpy shape and have oozed and stuck to various pieces of furniture. We keep everlastingly at it, but there is no headway. Any ideas?

    Example #2: Yelling
    The kids yell all the time—when they’re mad, when they’re happy, when they’re sad, when they’re bored, when they’re going to bed, when they’re waking up, when they’re eating, when they’re not eating—basically, like I said, all the time. Any ideas? (I’ve actually implemented a little system to help deal with this particular problem, but since it’s not exactly kosher, I’m keeping mum till I hear your suggestions.)

    And now, on to other things. Like cookies.


    I’ve made this recipe three times now, and it’s been weighing heavy on my mind these days. I keep thinking wistful thoughts about cookies, and then when I indulge in the fantasy for a little longer, I see visions of chocolate chip cookies, and then butterscotch, molasses, and oatmeal raisin cookies…and then the butterscotch cookies once again. They’re that way, insistent.

    Butterscotch Cookies
    Not hardly even adapted at all from Molly’s recipe, ‘cause hers is so dog-gone perfect.

    Word of advice: Make a double batch.

    14 tablespoons butter
    1 1/4 cups dark brown sugar
    1 egg
    1 tablespoon vanilla
    1 3/4 cups flour
    1/2 teaspoon salt
    1/2 teaspoon baking soda
    2 tablespoons nonfat dry milk
    1 cup chopped pecans

    Beat the butter and sugar. Add the egg and vanilla and beat some more. Add the dry ingredients and beat till mixed. Stir in the pecans.

    Bake the cookies on a greased cookie sheet for about eight to ten minutes at 375 degrees. Take care not to over-bake them; the centers should still be ever-so-slightly wet and jiggly. Allow the cookies to rest on the baking sheets for another couple minutes before gently transferring them to a cooling rack.

    About One Year Ago: Peposo. And today I cooked a roast in the crock-pot. Must be something about the end of September that makes me crave red meat.

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