this woman’s work

Our fire inspector said

Jun 28, 2003 Parenting

We flunked our fire inspection. We need to move one fire detector six feet over and get a different fire extinguisher. We will then have 3 fire extinguishers and 5 smoke detectors in a 3-bedroom ranch with about 1200 square feet of living space (counting the playroom in the basement). We will be awfully safe.

The fire inspector was very nice and flunked us with regret even though it’s no big deal to pass. He’ll just come back out and sign off. While he was filling out the paperwork, we started talking about kids and he mentioned that two of his children are student class presidents at their respective high school and college. I said what I always say when people are bragging on their kids, “What’s your secret?”

“My secret,” he said, “Is that we do things the old fashion way.”

That’s code for spanking.

So he started talking about spanking.

“My mom didn’t hold with these time-outs,” he said. “The only time-out I ever got was the time she took out from whupping me to catch her breath!”

I thought this was funny and made note to tell my mom later. My mom was a spanker, too, as is my sister. I, however, am not.

You know it sounds wrong when I say, “My mom was a spanker” and what I should say is that she was a mom who spanked. Spanking wasn’t a huge part of her repetoire — she was also a fabulous listener and straight-forward talker — but it certainly backed up her commands, demands, and basic statements. Did it work? I don’t know. There wasn’t a test family of ourselves to compare any other parenting methods.

The reason I don’t spank is that it doesn’t feel right to me. I can’t imagine smacking my child with the intent to hurt or humiliate. Well, no, that’s not true. I can imagine it and when the idea sounds good to me, it’s a pretty solid indication that I need to get the hell away from the kid and refocus. But most of the time, spanking doesn’t occur to me; it’s not in my parenting toolbox.

I don’t think that this makes me better or worse than my mother or sister, who both think spanking is a legitimate tool in their toolboxes. I simply don’t think that you can take any one parenting decision out of context and use it as a measure of someone’s entire parenting career.

More important, I think, than our means of discipline is the entire spectrum of our relationships with our children. While it may seem strange to folks who don’t know her, despite my mom’s use of physical discipline, I felt both respected and much loved by her. Who we are to each other has less to do with that wooden spoon (her implement of choice) and way more to do with the many, many times that she stopped what she was doing to sit down and talk to me. I’m a writer because my mother believed in me when I was a child. I like myself because she liked me, too. I have a wonderful husband because she told me that I deserved no less.

Was she perfect? No. Could she have done a better job if she hadn’t spanked? That’s not a question worth answering. She did spank, she did do a great job, and I’m grateful for her mothering.

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