My favorite commercial right now is for a car. A dad is standing by the passenger's side window, giving driving directions to his daughter, shown as a tiny little girl of about 4 who is fidgeting with impatience. The camera shows him holding out the keys and cuts back to a teenager snatching them away, nodding her head, ready to go on her own adventures. This commercial brings a tear to my eyes every time I see it.
I'm not allowed to talk about my son anymore on facebook but hypothetical situations about random, unidentified people are ok. So as the hypothetical parent of an imaginary son (from now on referred to as IS), I can totally relate to that weird time warp that happens when the eyes in your head see an adult but the eyes in your heart still see a child. I've been warning him since he was an infant that he'd always be my baby. He doesn't get it. He rolled his eyes at me a few weeks ago and explained that he was an adult which disqualified him from still being my baby and proceeded to remind me of his age and give me his resume of accomplishments to prove that he's grown up. I pinched his cheek and told him how cute he was.
It's interesting to hear how remembers his childhood. His memories are so different from mine. I remember him as an active, noisy kid who loved attention and got to do pretty much what he wanted. He, on the other hand recalls a Dickensian existence where he was punished for everything and forced to work hard labor for menial wages.
When he sees a child acting up at a restaurant, or grocery store, or even at the dojo he'll wax nostalgic about how in the good old days when HE was growing up, he'd have been beaten over such behavior. How he lived in fear... fear that the wrath of his parents would rain down upon him if he was ever disrespectful or misbehaved. Not that he's overly-dramatic or anything, but really?
Yes, I did believe in corporal punishment, but beaten? When he was 2 and still in diapers, and threats, counting to three, and time out didn't work, I'd swat his butt. He would turn and look at me and ask, "are you serious?" He'd only cry if I said yes. I tried saying no once to see what would happen and he laughed at the joke and ran away to play. Clearly the swats didn't hurt anything except his pride.
About once every 6-12 months as he was growing up, I'd have to haul him to the bathroom when we were out in public and smack his behind until my hand hurt. If someone tried that with a kid today the kid would probably be taken away and placed in foster care, but back then you were still allowed to decide how to discipline your child. It worked like an exorcism. For months, his inner demon disappeared and I was left with a sweet, cooperative child most of the time.
I don't remember his father ever striking him. At least not as punishment. Every couple of years as he got bigger and a little stronger, he'd try to challenge his dad while sparring at the dojo, much like how the male students who have grown up with us try to challenge our sons now. I'd see feet fly past the window and hear a crash and the building would shake. The same thing used to happen with his brother. It usually took a couple of times getting knocked down before they'd be convinced it wasn't just a fluke and their dad could do that to them all day if he wanted to. Then they'd nurse their bruises and go train harder in anticipation of the next time, when they'd beat him for sure. Sometime around their 20's they got smarter and quit trying. They still don't fear their dad as much as they fear their sister, but they have a pretty healthy respect for him these days.
By the time I.S. was 7 or 8, I stopped the physical punishment all together. First, I wasn't strong enough for it to have much effect. Second he was intelligent and I could reason with him about consequences. Third, he was used to sparring in the dojo and was getting pretty tough. New measures were needed.
As a kid, he basically lived at the dojo. He'd come home from school, eat a snack, change his clothes, and then we'd head over. When we moved to our second studio, part of the build-out included a private room of his own where he could watch t.v., do homework, play with friends, play video games, or just hang out.
Punishment took creativity. We couldn't ground him because he didn't go anywhere. I didn't want to take away his tv or games because that's what kept him out of our hair while we were working. I became a big proponent of killing two birds with one stone and combining punishment with things he needed to do anyway.
Talking back, Mr. 7-year-old Mouth? That'll be 200 push-ups. The first time I tried this tactic it became a contest of wills. He was so pissed at me that he kept losing count, and since stubborn is his middle name, he'd start over. I eventually relented and told him he could stop, but he only grunted a "nope" and kept going. I think the plan was to show the world what a mean mother he had. A couple of instructors from another school stopped by, watched him awhile, and asked me what awful thing he did to deserve that many pushups. While eavesdropping on the conversation he lost count and had to start over for about the 4th time. I told him he'd probably done well over the 200, but he was determined to count from 1 to 200 in order or die trying. Our guests gave me a pitying look.
Acting up in grade school? That'll be Seisan (his routine for competition) 20 times a day until Nationals. He still complains that I made him do that but he got so good at it that he hasn't practiced it since and can still win tournaments with it.
Cursing? Spitting? that will cost $1 each time. It 's amazing how quickly he could break a habit when he had to pay cash.
He recalls getting in trouble at school in second grade for writing "fuck" on the blackboard while he was in line to leave for the day. I made him write something like, "I will not write bad words" one hundred times. As he relived the experience during one of his rants, he was shocked to learn that I thought it was kind of funny at the time. "I thought you were really pissed!" he told me. I just shook my head and answered, "you have nephews. What happens when they see you laugh at that stuff?"
During his teen years, the big threat was that if he got in serious trouble we'd send him to stay with his grandmother in Okinawa. She lived in Kumejima, an island so small that you can drive completely around the perimeter in a couple of hours. When we visited one year it was big news that they got a traffic light. Imagine a town the size of Bright, IN and stick it in the middle of the ocean with one ferry a day going in and out. You don't need a car because there's nowhere to go and it seems like everyone who lives there is either over 70 or under 10. Pure teenage hell.
The worst punishment he ever got was with the Steak'n'Shake incident. I won't go into details, even though I think the scare I got that night should give me a free pass to tell the story as often as I want. When the phone rings in the middle of the night and you hear, "this is the Colerain Township police department. Are you the mother of I.S.?" your heart stops and the blood rushes to your head at the same time.
He was fine, at least until he got home. The adventure ended when he burned rubber right in front of a police car. and with a certain type of beverage right in the front seat of his car. They believed him when he said it wasn't his, so they left the discipline to me.
This time he was grounded. For a very long time. But the most amazing thing happened after that...my mother called me to beg for mercy on his behalf and yell at me for being too hard on him after just ONE WEEK!!!! This is the woman who wanted to send me to rehab (I wasn't even doing drugs) because I was dating a guy she didn't like . Who WAS that woman and what did she do with my mother? For the record, he didn't remain grounded for the entire 3 months. Once I felt he'd gotten the message and I could trust him he got to drive and go out again. He never did anything stupid like that again. or, at least, I never got a call in the middle of the night from the police again.
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