SEEMED LIKE A GOOD IDEA AT THE TIME – the book

I’m not a parent. To the best of my knowledge. I mean, if I were a father, then someone would have mentioned it by now. I know I’m not very good with details, but I think I’d notice children within the first three years, especially if they were always around.

Young children are hard not to notice. They keep getting underfoot, so you trip over them all the time. They scream and cry over the least little thing. Babies display very little subtlety and nuance when it comes to communicating. They’re programmed to have hissy fits during the following times of day:

– Waking hours

– Sleeping hours

– All other times

– Twice on Sundays

And, they smell like, well, like, well, not good. The issue is they are inconsiderate and don’t use the bathroom. Now, being of sound mind and tolerable personal hygiene, you wouldn’t choose the moment when the bride and groom were exchanging wedding vows to let forth while in the second row of pews, precisely what some six-month-old baby once did.

There was no courtesy announcement beforehand—no two-minute warning. The dude just went boom, and the odor quickly disintegrated any shred of social order. People were trampling each other to get the hell out of the church. The stained-glass windows started cracking. The priest got as far as saying, “Do you, Carl, take Ellen to be your WHAT THE HELL? WHAT DID YOU FEED THIS LITTLE RAT BASTARD?! Forget it. I just retired. Bye.”

Carl and Ellen should have gotten the divorce without delay. Their marriage was doomed, thanks to some baby who wouldn’t wait until an appropriate time to use the restroom.

This failure on the child’s part to use the facilities is blamed on “toilet training.” Or the lack of it. This “explanation” is widely used to excuse this behavior, to which I say, “How about LEARNING how to use the toilet, you lazy maggot?”

This “I can’t help it, I’m not toilet trained” is a stalling tactic and only encourages irresponsible behavior in later life. If you let this toilet training issue slide, then what’s next? Well, I’ll tell you what’s next:

Socialism!

Children won’t get an honest job since being toilet trained is usually a job requirement, so they will sit around and collect disability because some politician will get a bill passed to say “the untrained” are too disabled to work, plus they’re persecuted so they’ll spend all their time getting Hollywood actors to wear brown ribbons. They’ll get lobbyists to force all of us God-fearing, patriotic, hard-working Americans from the USA of America to replace the word “toilet” in all buildings with the phrase “commode of oppression” to destroy yet another sacred institution plus, we won’t be able to call them “the untrained” as that won’t be politically correct so we’ll have to call them “practitioners of otherly enabled hygienic achievements” and our hard-earned tax dollars will go to a large segment of the population who are simultaneously pooping on themselves and burning the American Flag because, instead of getting toilet trained, they’ll vote for Bernie Sanders.

Anyway, I have no kids. This leaves me free to play with other people’s kids. I use the opportunity to get the children wound up. Once the kids are foaming at the mouth, bouncing off the ceiling, destroying anything not nailed down, and gnawing on the furniture, I return them to the parents.

“Here, I’m done. I must go. Ciao.”

The parents positively seethe with gratitude.

In 1978, I was friends with a couple with a son, Michael, and a daughter, Victoria. Not Mike and Vicky. None of this nickname nonsense. The parents were very clear about that. Michael and Victoria were kind and conscientious children. Suspiciously well-behaved, these two. Occasionally, I’d come over and play babysitter on weekends so the parents could get some alone time.

One such weekend, I arrived at 5 pm Friday, and the parents were already flying out the door. Just as they were getting in their car to take off, the mother stood up and, in front of the children, yelled, “Okay, Drew. What are your most important rules for this weekend?”

“Uh, I dunno…buy low, sell high?

“I’m serious. There needs to be some rules that cannot be broken under any circumstance.”

“Huh? What are….oh, uh, how about this? Don’t do anything that might injure yourself, and don’t do anything that might injure someone else.”

I didn’t know where this was going.

The kids immediately said, in unison, “Okay.” Given the kids’ good nature, what I said seemed fair and benign ground rules.

The mother then yelled to the kids, “Okay, you two. Those are the rules. And if you break one of those rules, Drew will have to give you a spanking.”

The kids immediately said, in unison, “Okay.”

I immediately said, “Huh?”

“Drew, this is important. They need to learn that actions have consequences.”

I was ready to say she was entirely out of her mind. They were about to shut the car doors and leave, so I said, “Yeah, sure, fine, great idea, whatever.”

“Okay, you two. You heard what he said.”

Again, they both immediately said, “Okay.” In my defense, this is back when spankings were a standard free service offered by most parents, so, at that moment, I didn’t think anything about it.

I figured Michael and Victoria were such sweet kids that there’d be no issue, so I didn’t think it was worth an argument. Michael was five at the time. Victoria was six.

Besides, I’m not going to hit a child. I mean, come on. If they got out of hand, I’d do what any responsible adult would. I’d get a restraining order against them.

I remember thinking these two youngsters were too cooperative. It didn’t concern me. However, it didn’t seem quite right. I encouraged them, here and there, to act up, but they were having none of it.

The parents were spastic about the rules. Bedtime was, I think, 9 pm on weekends, which meant being in bed at 9 pm. 9:01 was too late. Not negotiable. 9 pm.

Only acceptable television shows were allowed. I received a list of them.

Subjects of “questionable content” were never uttered by them or me. I wanted to tell them to give me a little credit. I knew how to keep it clean in front of the youngsters.

For example, I had a girlfriend named Carolyn in college. She had a six-year-old stepbrother called Jason. When I first visited her house, I made sure to tell Jason, in a very family-friendly way, that I was going to Carolyn’s room to study and he shouldn’t worry about the noise coming from her room because that was just part of the studying process which was something he’d understand once he got to college.

Also, in the mildest terms, I once told him, “Carolyn especially enjoys doing her BIOMECHANICS homework, and she might get excited testing her theories on, well, CARDIOVASCULAR SYSTEM DYNAMICS and on…oh, let’s call it TISSUE ENGINEERING.

“And Jason. Just a heads up, if we’re able to, well, RESOLVE properties of kinetic energy with the muscle responses to external forces in stimulated, uh, I mean, simulated conditions, then you might even hear her delightfully scream….in the…..joy….of….academic…..accomplishment.”

It can’t get more subtle than that.

I figured this weekend would be fine, and we wouldn’t get sidetracked by any spanking controversy.

Well, wouldn’t you know….

It wasn’t even 6 pm when Michael, during a momentary yet horrendous lapse of total reason, tossed a very sharp knife at Victoria. He didn’t throw it hard. It was an underhanded toss, but it could have done real damage had it hit her. It was in a fit of frustration and entirely out of character. Once he did it, he looked mortified. The knife was barely out of his hand before he looked around to see if I noticed. I did notice, and I also noticed that he noticed that I noticed, Victoria noticed that I noticed, and Michael noticed that she noticed that I noticed. Then, both kids stared at me.

I was staring at the ceiling and saying, under my breath, “I need a beer.” No booze in the house. Another rule.

Again, I’m not a parent. While I didn’t know much about kids, I did know that when you tell a six-year-old that if X happens, Y will result, then Y had better result should X happen. Kids catch on to adult inconsistencies faster than adults. And, when they do, they’ll lose all respect for you and for all those things that make this country great, such as whoopee cushions, government corruption, racial hatred, and credit card debt.

Which meant I was now going to have to spank a child who wasn’t mine (to the best of my knowledge). I immediately got angry at myself for so casually agreeing to such stupidity.

“Uh, yeah. Right. Right-o. So. Okay. Right-o. So. Hey, Victoria. Would you like to go back outside and play more soccer with your pals?”

She looked very concerned.

“It’s fine. Have fun. We’ll join you guys in a couple of minutes.”

She slowly walked back outside while Michael looked at the floor.

I suggested he and I sit on the living room couch to review the situation. I still had no idea how I was going to manage this.

I decided to keep the temperature as low as possible just in case Michael chose to defend his actions aggressively. I started with, “Well, maybe a career in family relationship therapy isn’t in your cards…”

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m thinking ‘mob enforcer’ could be a profession you should consider…”

“I’m sorry.”

“Right. Right-o. I got it—message received and understood. You’re sorry. Let’s cast our minds back in time, shall we? Do you remember the part about not doing anything to injure anyone?”

“I didn’t mean it.”

“Ah, I see. We all do stupid sh….things we didn’t mean to do. Drunk drivers don’t mean to run people over. They were careless and, after sentencing, ended up f the Sweetheart of Cellblock C.”

“I don’t get it.”

“Good. The point is, if we do something, we must deal with the sh….stuff that comes after. Drunk drivers still end up paying for their recklessness by going to jail.”

“I’m sorry.”

Maintaining my friendly demeanor, I said, “Yes, I remember you mentioning that. A lot, now that I think about it. Saying we’re sorry we fu…..did something wrong doesn’t mean we don’t have to deal with the sh….what was the word your mom used?”

“Consequences.” He sounded defeated.

“THAT’S the word. Thank you. There’s a lesson in this for both of us. Yours is we’re all still accountable for what we do if it breaks the house rules. Wanna know what my lesson is?”

“What did you do?”

“Oh, yeah. My lesson is not to agree to do something I know I shouldn’t agree to. That was a bad move on my part. I know that now. And, please believe me, I’m sorry, too. I hope you accept my apology. I

didn’t think we’d be stuck having to do this thing. I’m feeling dumb now.”

“It’s okay.”

“I don’t want to do this thing except we both promised your parents, and we don’t want to be known as people who don’t keep their promises. I know you don’t want that.”

“Uh-uh”

“So, now we gotta do this thing.”

Silence.

“Okay, let’s do this thing so we can go outside and play. I hate the idea of doing this thing….we gotta do. “

“I know.”

“You believe that, yes? I mean, this seems wrong—this thing. I don’t want to do this. You know that.”

“I know.”

“Okay, right. So, uh, got a question. How are we supposed to do this thing?”

Michael explained the process involved him lowering his pants, lying over his father’s lap, and getting his naked bottom spanked for a while with a large wooden hairbrush, which, if very distant memory serves, stings like hell. A hairbrush was on a desk across the room and was big enough to use in a street fight.

He was too forthcoming for my liking. I admired his honesty about the family spanking process but come on! Really? Had I been in Michael’s shoes, I’d have said we referred these matters to our attorneys, and, after interrogatories followed by sworn depositions, a mediator would make a ruling, which usually resulted in me paying a fine plus court costs. In cases where the mediator ruled against me, the spanking would be conducted using the trial documents.

Now, I did agree to spank these poor, terrorized children. On the other hand, I never said I would follow the family’s prescribed process. So, I said, “Yikes. Well….ouch. Right. Right-o. Okay. Well, so….hmmm. Let’s give the hair brush a miss and, please, PLEASE, keep your pants on on accounta ick.”

So, I pretended to spank him. We went through the motions. I threw in a reminder to cool it with tossing knives at people, or else I’d have to spank him for real. Instead of a hairbrush, I’d use a folding chair.

Michael was fine. I was relieved and happy I wouldn’t have to do anything like THAT again. We went outside to see how soccer was coming along.

We just stepped outside when I looked up and saw Victoria run into the street without looking for cars, chasing the soccer ball. I tried to yell for her to get off the road, but I couldn’t get one word out, thanks to the total terror that took over. She picked up the ball and turned around in time to notice that I noticed that she noticed that I noticed, and the other kids noticed that she noticed that I noticed that they noticed, and now I was in deep.

It’s one thing for an adult male, who’s not the father, to spank a boy. It’s another thing if the spankee is a girl. Long-term consequences can be ugly. I knew this as the above-referenced Carolyn talked about the humiliation she endured with the numerous spankings from an uncle. All aspects of her life were negatively impacted, none more so than intimacy. It screwed her up quite a bit. Our first attempts at sex resulted in her shutting down and sobbing.

I wasn’t going to be the cause of any shred of damage.

And, yes, thank you. I realize she could have broken down in tears due to her disappointment with me in bed, so shut up. Besides, we barely got to the clothes-off part before she fell apart, so I didn’t have enough time to disappoint her. Fortunately, she sought some highly intense psychotherapy so she could feel at ease with her clothes off. Unfortunately, she identified me as her psychotherapist, so she never addressed the cause, which was her uncle, who was a miserable piece of jet trash. He should have been locked in a public Porta-Potty that hadn’t been cleaned in 90 days and, 96 hours later, tossed over the White Cliffs of Dover (while still in the Porta-Potty) and buried in a landfill (while still in the Porta-Potty).

The good news was we worked out some valuable strategies that helped her jump over the intimacy wall. This meant she could be thoroughly disappointed by yours truly in bed. Those strategies and their implementation are stories for another day. Or not.

So, there I sat. On the living room couch. Again.

Victoria chose to stand.

Starting the conversation with an inspiring and informative statement, I said, “Well……”

I had no clue what to say.

“Hmmm, I was….uh….what the…..well, sh…..shucks—ah, got it. Let’s see if we can agree on….this. To me, running into the street, something your parents don’t want you to do, without looking for cars and getting run over, equals ‘doing something that might injure yourself.’ You knew it was against the rules. You looked guilty when you saw me. So, uh, what are your thoughts on that?”

“I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, I heard that a lot from my previous customer. No fair apologizing. It’s this learning actions have consequences thing that has your parents ridiculously….I mean, seriously concerned.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Would you please stop apologi….”

“I was bad.”

“Whoa!!! Time out!!! Stop. Who said anything about you being bad? You aren’t bad. You have never been bad. Never, ever, ever. Uh-uh. You made a mistake. That’s what we humans do. Pencils have erasers for a reason.”

“So, it’s okay that…?”

“On the other hand,” I interrupted. “You did run out into the street without looking. We did agree with your mom about not doing anything to hurt yourself. You could have been hurt. I mean, you do know that, yes?”

Silence. She stared at the floor and looked sad. Not the staged-sad look that kids will give you. Just sad. And, scared. As with Michael, she was putting up no fight or argument. She wasn’t trying to tap dance her way around it. Their honesty was admirable. It was troubling, too. And, sad.

There was something in the way she said, “I was bad.” It hit me. I didn’t say anything for a minute. I just stared at the floor.

It was plain to see the message they received from their parents early on: “If you don’t do what we tell you to do or act the way we tell you to act or speak the way we want you to speak, then you will suffer. And, if you dare not to be perfect, then we will hurt you.”

They were operating in fear.

I asked her to sit next to me, and she did.

“What I’m about to say is important. It’s something you must remember for the rest of your life. Always. Listen very carefully. Are you ready?”

Quick nod. She was still looking down.

From about two inches from her ear, I whispered, “You have never, never, never been bad your whole life.”

She thought for a moment and gave another quick nod. No eye contact. I figured some adult, any adult, needed to tell her she wasn’t bad.

“Repeat after me: ‘I am Victoria.’ I’m serious; say, ‘I am Victoria.’”

After a pause, “I am Victoria.”

“‘And I am good.’”

Another pause. “And I am good.”

It took some prodding before she said the entire sentence while continuing to stare at the floor.

“Now, Victoria. You need to look at me and say that whole sentence.”

That was a challenge. She managed, eventually.

“Keep looking at me and say it like you mean it.”

She tried a couple of times.

“You are good. Good. Victoria, I think you’re great. Making an honest mistake doesn’t mean you’re bad. It means you’re a normal person. We learn from making mistakes.”

“Do you make mistakes?”

“Me? No, never. Not once. It’s amazing. Yes, I make mistakes all the time. I am the Master of Mistakes. Snafu Central. Father of the Fu….Inaccuracy. The other night, I met this woman, she seemed nice, and, well, one thing led to another, and before we knew it, we went to her…um, we went to her…library! That’s it. And I found out I had an overdue book. That was an oops.”

“I always do something wrong. ” She sounded frustrated.

“Me, too! Wanna know who else makes lots of mistakes? Your mom and dad. Me. Everyone you’ll see for the rest of your life has made mistakes. It doesn’t mean you’re a bad person. You’re a good person.”

I was thinking how absurd this had gotten. I was about to say, “Young lady, you are NOT getting a spanking until you convince me how good you are!”

I threw out another challenge. “Let’s replace ‘good’ with ‘strong and great.’”

The immense silence followed.

It took a while before she said it as though she meant it, which was good enough for the moment. I thought it was time to finish this before Michael wondered what I did with his sister.

“Here’s something I think you should do every day. Look in the mirror and say, “I am Victoria, strong and beautiful.”

She said she’d “try.” “Try,” in kid-speak, means, “Don’t hold your breath.” That was another thing I knew about children.

There was a handheld mirror on the coffee table. I held it before her and pestered her to repeat the sentence a few times. She did and didn’t look quite so fearful.

I did the same preamble: this isn’t about you; it’s about actions and consequences. And that I was a true moron for agreeing to do this. I kept the snappy banter going for a few minutes until she reached the “let’s do this today, please” stage.

I should have mentioned her parents were deranged.

“Right, let’s do this thing and go back out. HEY! NO. DON’T TAKE YOUR PANTS OFF. NOT GOOD. And let’s give the hair brush a miss, too.”

We went through the motions. Again.

I said, “There. Done. Finished. Don’t let it happen again.”

Victoria replied, “It’s over?”

I smiled, “Yeah.”

She looked back at me with a facial expression that said, “You’re terrible at this.”

We decided to do pizza and ice cream for dinner. We capped off the festivities by throwing ice cream at each other in the front yard while singing “Play that Funky Music,” which was annoyingly popular then. I ensured they completed all the necessary rituals before tucking them into bed precisely at 9 pm. I went downstairs to knock off some homework while hearing “Play that Funky Music” sung from their rooms.

I thought about what I had said to Victoria and decided it would have helped to have someone tell me I was strong and wonderful when I was seven,

As a child, walking around thinking you’re worthless and wrong is a bitch.

It’s not much fun as an adult, either.

—THE END—

Next Chapter

ALMOST…

There’s a post-script.

I’m writing this because, not long ago, I unexpectedly got a call from Victoria. We completely lost touch when she was eight. Her family moved, and we haven’t spoken since.

She tracked me down.

We laughed Spanking-Gate. She told me during stressful times in her youth; she’d repeat, “I am Victoria, and I am strong and beautiful.” In front of a full-sized mirror.

She is in a management capacity for some big banks. She was happily married. Two children. Two happy children who were never afraid to make mistakes. Her parents were at the very edge of her picture. I got the impression she didn’t have much to do with them.

Her friends, family (excluding her parents), and co-workers call her “Vic.”

“Mike” said hello, too.