Oh the irony - a post about haircuts and spankings

My Mom and Dad went to New York this weekend to be present at the very, very small wedding of my Dad's cousin, Johnny. It was so small, that with the addition of my parents, the total people present at the wedding - including the bride and groom and pastor -- was 5.

On the way back, Dad and Mom stopped at our house for breakfast. Lester made pancakes from scratch. I made cinnamon apples. We ate until we were stuffed, and sat around the table talking about the latest NFL scandal involving a football player who "disciplined' his 4-year-old by beating him with a switch until he tore the skin and left marks that were visible three days later. This turned into a debate about spanking vs. not spanking.

While we were debating, the kids were entertaining themselves, sometimes watching TV, sometimes playing with toys, sometimes running through the house making a lot of noise. We pretty much ignored them, because we keep trying not to hover quite so much -- "benign neglect" for their benefit and ours. And the discipline debate was pretty passionate, so we also kinda forgot about them. (Just being honest.)

And then Dean decided to play barber shop and cut two huge chunks out of the side and back of Clair's hair:

This is more hair than it looks like, because her hair is so tightly coiled. Today, my poor daughter has a combover -- a look she will be rocking for many months to come.

I posted this status message on Facebook about it:

Parents and grandparents downstairs at the breakfast table, passionately debating old school vs. new school ways of disciplining children. To make the discussion less hypothetical, my helpful boy decides to cut huge chunks out of Clair's hair. Grandparents leave after breakfast -- smug.

Which makes the irony of it all seem kinda funny. Oh, kids -- they sure have good timing. Ha. Ha. Ha. And I suppose I can see how at a certain point, it will be funny. But believe me, as I combed through her hair and more and more curls kept coming out into my hand, I was almost in tears.

Here's my dirty little secret: I wanted to spank Dean. I really did. I wanted to yell and scream and really punish him. I felt like he needed to know how serious what he did was. I could totally identify with that parental urge to make him understand his crime, and instill in him a fear of repercussions that would make him never, ever do that again.

But I didn't --WE didn't, Lester and I. Instead, we made him go to his room and lie down - separated from us, his grandparents, the TV and the cinnamon apples. He stayed there for three and a half hours (he fell asleep).


If I had not just been arguing with my parents about my belief that we can raise our children to be well-behaved, respectful and good decision makers without spanking them, would I have chosen that way of punishing him? I think I would. I hope I would. And here's why:

Aside from the obvious arguments about respecting a child's personhood, and about the hypocrisy of teaching children not to hit when we, ourselves, him them, I just don't believe in my heart of hearts that spankings work. I think they make children fearful, yes, but not of the thing parents hope. In fact, I think they only serve to make them fear YOU.

I don't want Dean to fear me. What I want is for him to learn to better regulate his impulses. I want him to try harder to remember that scissors are for cutting paper and paper only. And that he is not supposed to even handle scissors when an adult is not around. We've told him these things many times, but I believe this kind of learning takes place over time -- not by dealing a swift blow to knock it out of him once and for all.

I don't want my children to fear me. I want them to love, respect and trust me.  And that won't happen if they think I will hurt them.

Cary, Dean and Clair: I will not hurt you, my littlest loves. I will love you and guide you and teach you and, yes, discipline you. I will make mistakes, that is a guarantee. But I will try my absolute hardest not to ever hurt you. Even when you do ridiculously stupid things like CUT YOUR SISTER'S HAIR, WHICH TOOK THREE FRIKKIN' YEARS TO GET LONG ENOUGH FOR ME TO ACTUALLY STYLE!!!

P.S. Later we found out that Cary was in on the cutting game too; he snipped a little bit of fabric out of Clair's prettiest pink tutu. (Clair was far more upset about that than she was about her hair). By the time the full story unfolded, I was too tapped out from having to put my money where my mouth was to really grasp what happened. Thankfully, Lester had his wits about him and sent Cary to bed too. So when the boys woke up at 3:30, they both had missed lunch. It was too early for dinner, and they both wanted snacks. But I held my ground and didn't give them anything, and I patiently explained why: They missed lunch because they had to go to bed while the rest of us ate, because they both did something very bad. And now they had to wait until dinner to eat. Let me tell you -- this was probably the best punishment I could ever have dreamed up. These kids love to eat -- snacks especially! So I think they got the message. I hope so anyway.

I didn't have to spank them; their little growling bellies were pain and suffering enough!

The irony of having a light-sleeping baby

By now, I have griped enough about Cary's inability to sleep past 6:30 in the mornings (6:30 is a good day!) and his newfound love of waking up at night, like a newborn, despite months of sleeping through the night blissfully.

It's irritating, no doubt, but what's interesting is how it starts to become something you get used to.

So this morning, I woke up at 6:17, and immediately strained to see if I heard him in the room, whimpering. I did not. Great, I said to myself, I can sleep a few extra minutes! I dozed off, I think, or at least lapsed into semi-sleep.

At 6:33, I sat up in bed again, straining to see if I heard him. Instead, I heard silence.

Hmm, I wondered. Is he OK?

Then I thought back to a little earlier that morning, around 3:30 a.m., when Dean woke up crying for Puppy. I lumbered into the boys' room, found Puppy, and Dean fell back on his pillow, sighed, and was probably asleep before I left the room. I remember thinking at the time that it was strange that Cary wasn't awake, as he didn't get the nickname Prince Lightsleeper for nothing. I peeked in Cary's crib, but decided at the last second not to touch him, for fear of waking a sleeping bear. (A Cary-bear, but a bear nonetheless.)

So this morning, at 6:33, my mind raced back to 3:30 a.m. When I peeked in on Cary, was he breathing?? Could I even really see him in the dark?? Why didn't he wake up when Dean did? Why didn't I reach in his crib to pull his little blanket up, and feel his body move?

I lay there, as the morning light was starting to pour in through the slats of the blinds in our bedroom, and watched the clock.

6:34. 6:35. 6:36.

What is going on in there?? Why isn't that baby awake?????

My mind began to play tricks on me. I thought awful things that I will not repeat here, because they're just too awful to even think about, much less put out into the blogosphere.

I stared at Lester's peacefully sleeping back. Should I wake him up? Something must be wrong! I gave a quick, silent prayer. I breathed in and out, slowly. I tried to think of other things, like what I was going to wear to work, and if my dentist appointment was at 4 or 4:30 this afternoon.
I shifted in the bed and hugged my baby bump.

Finally, at 6:43, I heard him -- my baby!! -- making a crying noise that is normally hysterical to me, because it is his "fake" crying noise, the one he does when he sees a baby in a book: "Waah, waah," he was saying, without much heart, I might add. "Waah, waah."

I bounded out of bed, ran to his room and scooped him up and kissed him! Little sleepy stinker!

Never have I been so glad to hear his cry, fake or otherwise.

I think it is so funny that I can't sleep when my child is constantly waking up ... and I can't sleep when he doesn't wake up!

Oh, the ironies, the agonies, the pure, unmatched joys of being a Mom.