Time to Walk the Walk
I have a confession to make. It is my dirty little secret that I can’t hold onto any longer. I smack my son. AND I LIKE IT! Not in some sort of evil, twisted, child abuse kind way though. I like it because, well, quite frankly, it fucking works.
When I was a child, and I suspect probably some of you reading this too, I was smacked when I misbehaved. And, as I have discovered with my own son, when all else fails, a smack on the bottom pretty quickly sorts out the behaviour. As a little kid, when I received a smack, I knew damn well that it had gone too far. So does my son.
However, somewhere along the line between my childhood and my sons, a new way of thinking popped up. Along with it came the hugely booming business of parenting books. Apparently (no pun intended) it became wrong to smack your children. It could cause long term psychological harm I am told. Who the fuck is writing this stuff? Probably the same freaking hippy idiots who have made it against the rules to hand out party invites at school for fear of upsetting the kids that don’t get one. Quite frankly, if my recollections of school are anything to go by, the students will be letting the loser kids know what they think of them in far more horrific ways than failing to invite them to a party.
In a similar vein to my bullying post, I have found that smacking is a most effective way to deal with any hard core “communication disconnects” I am having with my son. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t just give him a smack at the drop of a hat. I try very hard to go through all the hippy new age parenting bullshit first. I talk through the issues, I ask nicely, I try to distract his attention away from the problem area, I ask again, I try and reason with him (there is an interesting concept – reasoning with a 2 year old). I even give him 3 warnings to let him know that a smack is in the air. When it comes to him, I have a remarkably long fuse. He is after all adorable.
And to be fair, quite often, these other techniques work fine and all is well our world. But sometimes, despite all of my efforts, sometimes, he just pushes the envelope too far. And each time this has occurred (in all probability about 3 times in total – so far); a smack on the bottom has sorted him out. The message is loud and clear. And he gets it. Sure he might cry for a bit, but he knows that his behaviour was unacceptable and it stops. The reason for his ignoring my earlier attempts at reason and logic I believe is that he is clearly testing to see what he can get away with.
In many ways I equate our relationship to that of the US with Saddam Hussein. For years Saddam got warnings and UN resolutions passed to comply with weapons inspectors. And for years he basically did what he pleased. His continued defiance of the UN basically made them a laughing stock around the world. This pissy country ruled by a murdering tyrant made the UN look like the biggest bunch of idiots. “Don’t misbehave or else you’ll get another warning” was the loud and clear message being sent.
Finally, the US got sick of it and took matters into their own hands. And thankfully, he got a swift kick up the arse. And even better, now that murdering prick is dead (important to point out, he was actually hung by his own people after being found guilty by his own people, of murdering his own people, so any of you Lefty, Anti-American, Al Qaeda terrorist sympathisers can go and get fucked).
The point I am trying to raise is, sometimes, negotiation just doesn’t work. Sometimes, actions speak much louder than words. Take the pussyfication of the Victorian police. I don’t mean to get all misogynistic here because the Police Commissioner is a woman, but I am yet to speak to a police officer who actually likes her or her methods. I am not saying police should be able to go out and just start thumping heads at the first sign of dissent, I am saying that there are times when people have no intention of co-operation, or peaceful protest, and are in fact just out to cause trouble.
Like my son, they just laugh in your face until you do something about it. Which is why, in one of the most pathetic displays of recent memory, at a directive of the Commissioner to not engage the protestors, they were able to blatantly destroy a van, hurl abuse and spit on the police at the recent G20 summit in Melbourne. Fucking sickening. Seriously, if my children grow up and start that shit, I would go down there myself and snot the bastards.
Those protestors knew there would be no immediate ramifications because, the police have in the current environment, had their balls cut off. I could go on like this citing example after example of situations where all this feel good, touch feely, lets just sit down and talk it over mentality just does not work (Rwanda, Mugabe in Zimbabwe, S11 riots etc). Lots of times it does work, and for this I am very happy. No need to have conflict when it can be avoided. But if people are looking for trouble, I think as a society, we should be allowed to dish it out back to them.
I am not a violent person. I have never been in a serious fight, been convicted of any crime. But I seriously think we need to pull our heads out of our collective arses sometimes and man up a bit. If people want trouble, whether it be a misbehaving child, a brutal mass murdering dictator, or some stupid fuckwit protestor smashing up a police van, then by crikey, we should, without fear of hippy frowning, be able dish it out a bit. It is like we have been fast forwarded to some quasi-version of the movie Demolition Man (except now Sly probably can’t come back to Australia so we are fucked).
I think the slogan should be changed from “make love not war!” to “make love, regularly, in a variety of positions and locations, use toys if you like, but if that doesn’t work, kick some arse into line!”.
Sorry for all the swearing today. I got a bit excited.
Cheers Cracker
When I was a child, and I suspect probably some of you reading this too, I was smacked when I misbehaved. And, as I have discovered with my own son, when all else fails, a smack on the bottom pretty quickly sorts out the behaviour. As a little kid, when I received a smack, I knew damn well that it had gone too far. So does my son.
However, somewhere along the line between my childhood and my sons, a new way of thinking popped up. Along with it came the hugely booming business of parenting books. Apparently (no pun intended) it became wrong to smack your children. It could cause long term psychological harm I am told. Who the fuck is writing this stuff? Probably the same freaking hippy idiots who have made it against the rules to hand out party invites at school for fear of upsetting the kids that don’t get one. Quite frankly, if my recollections of school are anything to go by, the students will be letting the loser kids know what they think of them in far more horrific ways than failing to invite them to a party.
In a similar vein to my bullying post, I have found that smacking is a most effective way to deal with any hard core “communication disconnects” I am having with my son. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t just give him a smack at the drop of a hat. I try very hard to go through all the hippy new age parenting bullshit first. I talk through the issues, I ask nicely, I try to distract his attention away from the problem area, I ask again, I try and reason with him (there is an interesting concept – reasoning with a 2 year old). I even give him 3 warnings to let him know that a smack is in the air. When it comes to him, I have a remarkably long fuse. He is after all adorable.
And to be fair, quite often, these other techniques work fine and all is well our world. But sometimes, despite all of my efforts, sometimes, he just pushes the envelope too far. And each time this has occurred (in all probability about 3 times in total – so far); a smack on the bottom has sorted him out. The message is loud and clear. And he gets it. Sure he might cry for a bit, but he knows that his behaviour was unacceptable and it stops. The reason for his ignoring my earlier attempts at reason and logic I believe is that he is clearly testing to see what he can get away with.
In many ways I equate our relationship to that of the US with Saddam Hussein. For years Saddam got warnings and UN resolutions passed to comply with weapons inspectors. And for years he basically did what he pleased. His continued defiance of the UN basically made them a laughing stock around the world. This pissy country ruled by a murdering tyrant made the UN look like the biggest bunch of idiots. “Don’t misbehave or else you’ll get another warning” was the loud and clear message being sent.
Finally, the US got sick of it and took matters into their own hands. And thankfully, he got a swift kick up the arse. And even better, now that murdering prick is dead (important to point out, he was actually hung by his own people after being found guilty by his own people, of murdering his own people, so any of you Lefty, Anti-American, Al Qaeda terrorist sympathisers can go and get fucked).
The point I am trying to raise is, sometimes, negotiation just doesn’t work. Sometimes, actions speak much louder than words. Take the pussyfication of the Victorian police. I don’t mean to get all misogynistic here because the Police Commissioner is a woman, but I am yet to speak to a police officer who actually likes her or her methods. I am not saying police should be able to go out and just start thumping heads at the first sign of dissent, I am saying that there are times when people have no intention of co-operation, or peaceful protest, and are in fact just out to cause trouble.
Like my son, they just laugh in your face until you do something about it. Which is why, in one of the most pathetic displays of recent memory, at a directive of the Commissioner to not engage the protestors, they were able to blatantly destroy a van, hurl abuse and spit on the police at the recent G20 summit in Melbourne. Fucking sickening. Seriously, if my children grow up and start that shit, I would go down there myself and snot the bastards.
Those protestors knew there would be no immediate ramifications because, the police have in the current environment, had their balls cut off. I could go on like this citing example after example of situations where all this feel good, touch feely, lets just sit down and talk it over mentality just does not work (Rwanda, Mugabe in Zimbabwe, S11 riots etc). Lots of times it does work, and for this I am very happy. No need to have conflict when it can be avoided. But if people are looking for trouble, I think as a society, we should be allowed to dish it out back to them.
I am not a violent person. I have never been in a serious fight, been convicted of any crime. But I seriously think we need to pull our heads out of our collective arses sometimes and man up a bit. If people want trouble, whether it be a misbehaving child, a brutal mass murdering dictator, or some stupid fuckwit protestor smashing up a police van, then by crikey, we should, without fear of hippy frowning, be able dish it out a bit. It is like we have been fast forwarded to some quasi-version of the movie Demolition Man (except now Sly probably can’t come back to Australia so we are fucked).
I think the slogan should be changed from “make love not war!” to “make love, regularly, in a variety of positions and locations, use toys if you like, but if that doesn’t work, kick some arse into line!”.
Sorry for all the swearing today. I got a bit excited.
Cheers Cracker
posted by Unknown at 10:03 PM
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