Spanking: Abuse or discipline?

The other day, my Dad, (my son's "Poppa") asked me if we ever spanked my baby.  He wasn't asking in a nosy or accusing sort of way; just genuinely curious.

It had been prompted by my son's attempt to disobey me by climbing up the stairs by himself.  When I picked him up off the stairs and sat him back down on the floor, he threw what, for him, counts as a tantrum:  He arches his back, gives a little yell, and we lay him down on the floor.  He lays there, I ignore him and walk away, and 9 times out of 10, instead of continuing to cry, he realizes it just isn't working, and gets up and follows me.

After watching this procedure, my not quite 3-year-old niece came up to me.  "Is he going to get a spanking?"  "No, honey," I told her.  "It's over now.  See?  He's already over there playing with the toys now.  Do you wanna go play with him?"

This is what prompted my son's grandfather to ask if we ever had, or ever did spank him.  And, on the rare occassion, we do.  There's just certain guidelines we follow.

Read more »

"You can't have two fun parents..." ~ Claire Dunphy, "Modern Family"

I'm not a helicopter parent.  I don't spend every second with my child hovering over him, making sure he does absolutely nothing out of line.  Don't get me wrong; I don't let him stand on the furniture, or stick his fingers in the electrical outlets, or play with chemicals under the sink or anything like that.  But when he runs over like he's going to climb up the stairs, I don't immediately chase him.  I normally ignore him for a second, and he comes back on his own, crisis (and tantrum) averted.

And, so far, being a laidback mom has worked pretty well.  My kid's healthy, smart, and has had only a couple ER visits.  One was for a bad ear infection, and the other was when he took a bite out of a glass holiday ornament (but seriously, that really wasn't my fault).  But all in all, my little man has been doing pretty well.

My husband's like me, and most of our extended family takes it pretty chill as well.  The exception is my dad, who cuts the kids' food up so tiny he might as well run it through a blender, and thinks every sneeze warrants a call to the doctor.  We all give him a hard time for being paranoid, and he's convinced we're all dangerously unsafe.

So of course it would be at his poppa's house that my son got his first major booboo.

Read more »

It's funny how good you can feel about both the small and the big achievements.

Just a couple of mornings ago, I wrote a post about the dangerous legislation proposing to redefine "rape" in the Hyde Amendment to "forcible rape".

I was one of millions of bloggers, tweeters, and other utilizers of social media to speak out against this issue. And, behold! The power of the people (with a hi-speed connection)!

The new wording of the bill has already been recanted. Props to everyone who called or wrote their congressperson to protest the rewording of the bill; your voice was heard. As much as we love to criticize the internet, isn't it cool how well it serves to spread information and opinion?

Read more »

Mommy Date Day!

The bad thing about yesterday was that the only time I could get an optometrist appointment was smack-dab in the middle of the day; both too early and too late to make going in to work feasible.

That was the only bad thing about yesterday.

Read more »

The enemy of my enemy is my cousin.

This past weekend, as I've mentioned, my parents watched my son for me. Well, they also had my middle sister's two kids, my 3-month-old nephew, and my 2 1/2 year-old niece.

Given as my son is 18-months-old, he is just the perfect age to infuriate my niece. He is neither young enough to be a cute little baby, nor old enough to play at her level. He is also impossible to boss around (which is, sadly, one of the favorite hobbies of 2 1/2 year-olds).

So my parents (their grandparents) spent a good deal of the weekend intervening when my niece find my son irksome. (One oft-used phrase was, "He has parents; you don't need to tell him what to do.")

There is also an element of jealousy too, obviously. My niece was the oldest cousin, and until my son was born a year later, was the sole grandchild. This led too a great surplus of attention. She also has never been in formal childcare, so interaction with other kids has been low. When you add her newborn little brother into the mix, you create the perfect storm for rivalry.

Read more »

I'm so proud of myself for actually reading Leviticus.

As I mentioned in a previous post, my Core Group (me and two awesome ladies a lot cooler than me) is currenty slogging through Leviticus.

Leviticus is not an easy read. There are rules for building the temple. And rules for sacrifice. And a few thousand (it seems) rules about what's clean and unclean, whether it's clean or unclean to eat, whether it's a clean or unclean affliction, or clean or unclean time to have sex (I don't know how they enforced that one, or rather, I don't want to think about it).

And this is why people sometimes feel like the Old Testament is a buzzkill, because of "Thou shalt not" books like Leviticus. But reading it now, as an adult, I'm starting to see how a lot of those laws made sense.

Read more »