Allow me to take you through a few of the creative (and completely real) punishments my parents, mostly my mother, derived for their own, sick pleasure.
1. At the age of 8 or so, my mother drove me to a teenage babysitter's house to apologize for my overzealous (read: sassy pants) attitude when it came to making a box of mac & cheese. Apparently, I was overstepping my bounds when I took the liberty of adding an additional Kraft single to the saucepan. But it's called improvisation, and call it passive aggressive, but I'm still adding that additional slice of processed cheese, while praying to God my kids don't gnaw off my calf as they wait for lunch. Anyway, the sitter had some friends over that day I came over to apologize. So yes, I had to say "sorry" in front of a room full of super cool teenagers with letter jackets and driver's licenses, which was as embarrassing as all get out. They say punishments shouldn't involvement humiliation. Guess who never challenged a babysitter again? And while we're talking about apologies, I had to apologize once to my sister after she she bit me. Yes, you read that correctly. I was pinned for provoking her, for "egging it on." I have no clue if I'm spelling that correctly. Apparently, I deserved the razor-sharp chomp of a two year old straight to the wrist, which could have actually drawn blood. It didn't, but it definitely could have under the right circumstances. Like if her teeth were shards of glass. I still don't entirely know why I was punished for that. I do know, however, that I said sorry, and I absolutely didn't mean it. Once again, they, I'm assuming child psychologists, none of whom have children of their own but maybe a pet chimp who can sign "apple," "Texas," and "That old pick-up is rusty," also say that forcing an apology out of a child is detrimental to his ego. I'm not sure about that, but I do know I've apologized countless times for things I'm not sorry about. For dumping cold water on my sister while she was in the shower, for cleaning out my mom's personal stash of Godiva, for swinging by Dairy Queen when it wasn't in the budget. WARNING, LADIES-- If your husband suggests mint.com as a way of tracking your family's spending, run. Don't look back. Returning to what I was saying-- learning how to apologize is a good skill, I think. Even when we don't want to do it. Even when we think we're right. Even when we know the person had it coming to him.
2. Another incident. I'm not recalling the specifics, but I do remember being punished by my mother and forced to copy out of the dictionary and/or write sentences. You wanna know what? I actually enjoyed that punishment. I love the act of physically writing something. It's calming, therapeutic. And I like having legible penmanship, unlike my husband. He works at a bank, and I'm telling you, if he had to come up with a hand-written note for a client, the recipient would be certain First Financial had hired a third grader as the bank manager. So yeah, the sentence-writing sort of backfired on my mom, but at least she was gutsy enough to try something other than grounded me from TV like everyone else's mom. She was usually tired of me by 8pm, so the TV in my bedroom room, now that I think of it, was probably more about getting me out of her hair than actually providing a luxury. Those crazy psychologists, believe it or not, also say you'll definitely screw up your kids by installing a television in their rooms. My parents even hooked up cable. GASP! My mother must have been really desperate for me to shut the heck up at night. On top of that, the English teachers of the world say punishment by forcing a child to read and/or write will turn them off from all things related to literature, creative writing, and the entire artistic process. Um, yeah. I'm going to go ahead and say I'm living proof that the aforementioned theory is a bunch of baloney. Make your kids write. And make them learn cursive, while they're at it.
3. As I got older, most of my punishments came in the form of "a talk in the green chair." My mom has this green, leather recliner in my parents' family room. Having my folks invite me to "take a seat," while they cleared their throats and turned off the TV (something that never happened), was pretty much like being escorted to a guillotine. You see, my family rarely had "family time." There's no way on God's green earth my dad would have signed up to attend a family meeting, and I'm sure my mom felt like she pretty much had everything under control without something hokey like that. Family game night? I think my dad and I both would have rather attended the family meeting! Unless we were headed to some forced-family-fun activity at an apple orchard or a winery, our conversations were limited to the daily run-down about school-- what we learned, what we wanted to learn, and what we should have learned but didn't because we smuggled in a Nano Pet. You think I'm kidding. Come to a family dinner at my parents' house. Guaranteed, someone will tell you to pipe down and eat your food. "A little less talking, a little more eating." That was the song title to my childhood. Road trip with the Roszczyks? Better not... unless you like silence for 8 hours. And no bathroom breaks. I don't say this to make my parents out to be monsters. They were more like werewolves-- they could turn on you quick. That's a good way of keeping teenagers on their toes, by the way. Catch them off guard, get 'em when they least expect it. Being a fairly oblivious child, I was an easy target. So anyway, the conversations involving both parents that took place from the vantage point of that recliner were never very good. There was a lot of bloodshed, and I was typically left to pick up my dismembered limbs piece by piece. Questions like, "What were you thinking?!" in regard to stealing For Sale signs out of people's lawns, and "Are you stupid?!" after I was caught talking to strangers in chat rooms. Granted, I was probably your ordinary teenager. But the way my dad's eyebrows would dance around on the top of his forehead while he shook his head in disappointment honestly made me wonder if I was a breath away from the detention center. I look back at all that, and I do sometimes wonder if calling your kid "stupid" is necessarily the best approach. But I think that sometimes it's better than the alternative-- telling them they're special, probably gifted, and destined for greatness. Kids pretty much think those things on their own.
For the record, my younger sister never, and I mean never, got into trouble the way I did. She is the favorite child. She should have been busted for that biting episode, but whatever. I'm totally over it. Aside from that, I don't think she's ever done anything even remotely close to green chair worthy. My mom says that second-borns are privileged to watch all of the first kid's screw ups, so that's the reason Erin turned out so much better than me. I must have screwed up a lot, because she's pretty frickin perfect. I think the birth order comment is supposed to make me feel better. Instead, I sort of feel like I got the raw end of the deal.
My whole point is that loving our kids often means punishing them, even when you know they'll end up in therapy someday because of it. Therapy is better than rehab and definitely better than jail. I think the problem, aside from just good 'ol fashioned American laziness, is that we equate "love" with more toys, more privileges, more yellow Lamborghinis. I know that's not a new thought, by the way. Everyone says we need to quit giving our teenagers the keys to the Honda and a couple of credit cards. But that's tough because if truth be told, I think we, ourselves, were probably overindulged as kids, too. That's a harder pill to swallow. All of us can point out that kids these days are spoiled and know very little about hard work, but none of want to admit that we, too, were probably just as pampered. Reading that may make you cringe. It certainly does me. And so we've sort of lost track what it means to be to spoiled. It's the blind leading the blind. We're navigating our way through at least a couple of generations that have been catered to way beyond what it actually means to successfully parent and provide for children. For example, my first car was my grandpa's hand-me-down, crimson, 1989 Fleetwood Cadillac. That car was a boat, but honestly, I loved it-- leather seats, a Bose stereo, and a remote control that could start and defrost the car for you. Eventually, the land yacht took a major dump, and my parents bought me a car in college that was less than 1 year old when they purchased it. At the time, I thought they were doing what most all reasonable parents would do-- replacing what was broken. They were the parents after all, and since they had way more money than I did, of course they'd extend their hand (and their wallet). Duh. But a "replacement" would have been a 1994 Chevy Lumina. The Malibu, which my husband actually drives these days, was a total and complete, undeserved upgrade. And do you want to know what I did to that car???? In less than a year, I managed to cause $1,000 in damage to it. The car my dad bought with a bonus. I still feel really bad about that one, worse now than I did then. Paying for your own life does that to a person. But it probably wouldn't have happened with the Cadillac... mostly because that thing was a beast. The dings, dents, and scratches that should have been there saved me a lot of money (and even more explaining). But once again, my argument is that I probably should have never been gifted the car in the first place. I should have been given my old Schwinn and told to start saving up.
Love means more time in Mom's lap and more time playing blocks with Dad. It absolutely means less wanting more, and more of being content with what we've already got. It means giving up on the idea that more money, more power, more stuff will make you a happier person. It means teaching our kids how to be responsible. How to be appreciative. How to work and work and work. How to work without acknowledgement. How to live on less. How to help ourselves, and then help others. How to figure it out on our own. How to graciously accept success, as well as defeat. How to stand out for the right reasons. Loving our kids means knowing that the very best form of ordinary is far better than what we're told (and sold) to believe. Can someone deliver that message to Hollywood for me?
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