A veritable arsenal of persuasion.
I would like to preface this story with the statement that I love both my parents deeply.
In my home growing up, Mom was the disciplinarian. Dad worked graveyard shift at the post office until I was in high school, so he didn’t have a chance to interact with us that much. I mostly remember him yelling down the stairs that my sisters and I were being too loud, so it was up to Mom to modify behavior as she saw fit.
Mom came from a tough background; dirt poor Pennsylvania country folk, her father a WWII sailor soaking his traumatized memories in booze. Her mother able to express herself only through flung crockery, I’m sure Mom caught her share of beatings, but I don’t think you would know it from looking. She has always been a go-getter, often being featured in the local newspaper as “Mormon Girl” for high school baton twirling (is that still a thing?), graduated with a year and a half of advanced placement credit, packed her few belongings and hit the road for college in Utah.
But she brought some ghosts with her on her trip out from Pennsylvania. A fierce ambition, to be sure, and also a dark simmering rage. How could you not?
Bamboo’s not a wood, I know. It still makes a worthy opponent.
When Dad met and married Mom, I think he was not ready for how much anger she had to work through. You could tell whenever Mom was about to go bonkers, because she would start cleaning the house as loud as she could, then came the yelling, followed by spankings all around with a wooden spoon. Once the wave of rage subsided, we would have one of our rare Family Home Evenings, a tradition in Mormon culture where Monday nights are set aside for family stuff, though Mom’s dark times were rarely constrained by days of the week. Dad would lecture us for an hour about how we need to help more around the house or whatever, then we would go back to what we were doing before Mom St. Helens erupted. This is one reason why I never have Family Home Evenings with my family, the phrase puts my defensive countermeasures on red alert.
Up until I was about 12, that wooden spoon was the scariest disciplinary implement in Mom’s arsenal. She hated cooking, so I don’t know why we had so many heavy, like oak ladles around the house. I guess it’s a blessing she wasn’t into golf or cricket or something with weightier accoutrements.
I dare you to fail algebra.
During one particularly bad day, Mom hit me with the spoon and it broke. We both looked at the spoon, then at each other and started laughing. It was like the spoon realized that it wasn’t doing any good and sacrificed itself. That wasn’t the last rage, or the last physical punishment, but it seemed that Mom had retreated back behind the demilitarized zone. It’s not an “ABC After School Special” type deal, but these were formative years, you know? I’m sure the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual that mental health professionals use has an entry for whatever is going on here, but I’m hesitant to put too much stock in that stuff. Psychologists have a hundred words for “That’s messed up.” I don’t consider myself to be abused, but I think Mom was. Is there a place between that and what unspanked people are? Scuffed? Refurbished?
Now I have two daughters of my own and, for the most part, my little girls are most excellent. Like all humans, however, behavior modification is sometimes called for. Much to my chagrin, I sometimes find a red haze descending over my vision as I clean the kitchen as loud as I can. Clearly the simmering rage has been passed down a generation, but I have chosen not to hit my kids.
First of all, I have a big heavy hand and they are little girls. Maybe the lessons from my childhood about not hitting girls was heavily ingrained, but I don’t think hitting my kids would really work, in their case. They are super sensitive people and in the younger daughter’s case, a disappointed look can reduce her to tears. Maybe I’m one of the lucky parents for whom time-outs still work (sometimes I put myself in time-out). Also, marrying a woman who is the mostly the opposite of Mom has been a recipe for happiness. Kate, my significant other, can remember being spanked once (ONCE) in her lifetime. There have been many times she’s intervened with me before an interaction with a daughter has achieved critical mass, sometimes with a comment, sometimes with just a look.
All the above may be true, but what I hope is happening is that the birthright of vision-clouding fury passed down from Mom is burning itself off, one generation at a time. Angry-cleaning is just something that happens at our house, and once the dishes are put away and the floor is mopped, I can usually wrap my mind around my life. We skip the Family Home Armistice portion of the conflict, and go back to what we were doing, all wooden spoons holstered and intact.
Is spanking becoming a less acceptable form of behavior modification? Are some kids just the kind that need a physical reminder, and others not?
PS. I totally love my Mom, and we are now pretty close. If a form requires an emergency contact other than my wife, it is still Mom. She is also the only person in my family I talk to on a regular basis, not because I am mad at the other ones, Mom is the only one who calls. I do think it helps that we live 40 or so miles away from each other.
I was spanked. When I first had a toddler I solidly believed that spanking had an appropriate place in childhood training.
I don’t think that anymore.
Christ used words, reasoning, reminders, explanations of why, patience, and more reminders. The only time he ever got physical in a corrective sense was when he cleared the temple out. So that’s part of it for me.
Another part is that they have done a lot of research about punishments and rewards and behavior modification…my husband happens to have studied this a lot (he works in special education, and is essentially a behavior modification specialist). Punishments, plain and simple, are not effective teaching methods. Some kids will comply, others will defy, and still others will curl up in a little ball in the corner and go limp. None of these have really learned anything except to try to avoid the punishment next time (which may lead to obeying, or may lead to being sneaky!).
What IS effective is teaching expectations, and then periodically rewarding them. I’m not suggesting that everything in life needs a sticker chart, but the little comments we give our kids, as well as the occasional actual rewards, or sure even sticker charts to help them focus on particular bad habit DO all add up.
Kids watch us all the time, and they observe how we deal with things when we are frustrated or upset, and then they do it too. I have spanked my kids, but I am working very hard to break that cycle. Firstly because I think it’s unchristlike, secondly because I think it’s ineffective, and thirdly because I’d like my children to learn that hitting is not a good solution for anything. My children are 2, 5, and 12, and they are generally very good kids. I’ve watched them say “thank you” and “I’m sorry” not because anyone ever told them to, but because they see us do it, and they imitate. I’ve watched them get angry and then (even the 2 year old) look me in the eye and say “Mommy, I’m mad” rather than hitting anybody. I feel pretty good about that.
So true, Mom learned how to deal with her anger by watching her mother throw plates when she was mad. Stop the Madness!
BTW, is it awesome being married to a behavior modification specialist, or does he try his dark arts on you?
I was never spanked, not even once. I don’t believe in physical punishment. The extreme strength difference and power is just too uneven. I think how scary it would be to have someone ten times bigger than me grab me and spank me and it just doesn’t seem right. Besides, I think I turned out pretty well.
My mom also broke a spoon on my brother. That was the end of her spanking. I do think it’s a different age regarding parent/child relationships and discipline. Mostly for the better, although ‘redirection’ and other approved modification techniques are very very time consuming, and really my mom did not have that kind of time.
Hey there, what’s redirection? Is that where you diffuse a tense situation by watching shows on TV? That always worked for my Dad.
:)
My mom would do that, get angrier and angrier until she’d go bonkers. She would take it out on me because I was the oldest. It made me feel terrible because I knew she wasn’t right (my Dad abused her so she’d abuse us kids) but I didn’t have the guts to stand up and say it because I knew I was in the wrong too. She’d get pissed because instead of watching my siblings closely I’d watch tv and they would go mess up the whole bathroom or spill paint on the porch or something.
I learned to never admit my mistakes and run away from contention. I learned to look at myself as a lazy, worthless, ugly coward. And also to hate and secretly want to punish my mom.
I’d have daydreams about tormenting on her. As I got older I started hitting her back. Those were dark times. I felt dark inside. And the worst of it was I found myself doing these same things to my younger siblings.
What saved me was loving her unconditionally, with all her faults, and my boyfriend Danny.
He taught me to stand up for myself.
He had such calm reasoning about the situations I would get in with my mother or my siblings, mixed with total love and support for me, that I felt secure where once I was lost. I remember he spent hours at my house helping me work with putting my little brother in time-out instead of yelling at him or even saying the words “the wooden spoon.”
And he constantly quoted, “No power or influence ought to be maintained…only by persuasion, long-suffering, gentleness, meekness, love unfeigned…Reproving betimes with sharpness…AND THEN SHOWING FORTH AFTERWARDS AN INCREASE OF LOVE…lest he esteem thee to be his enemy.” -D&C 121:40-43
When ever you are angry, you’re wrong. Period. Also, treat kids like adults and they will act with maturity.
P.S. I’m 22 now and still live with my Mom, divorced with 4 children to take care of. I love her very much, and give her what I earn to pay the rent and go to community college, very slowly. I attend the single’s ward every Sunday with Danny who will be going on a mission in a few months. Thank you for sharing your story.
Wow, what a story. I like the concept that whenever you are angry you are wrong. I am wrong a lot, I think.
It sounds like Danny is a great guy, sometimes we need someone else’s perspective to see new ways to be. I know my wife has done that for me.
“…(I hope) the birthright of vision-clouding fury passed down from Mom is burning itself off, one generation at a time.” I think this is true. I think this is what it means when a person is cursed “down to the third and fourth generations.” Children (your mother) and grandchildren (you) and great-grandchildren (your children) DO have to pay for the sins of their fathers. Although your wife does have a silver lining at least — loud cleaning is better than no cleaning at all!
Haha, when I’m having a bad week, you could eat off that floor!