Good afternoon world! I meant to give y’all another tidbit to chew on a few days ago, but this has been a really crazy week for me. I am truly sorry. But as you can see by the title of today’s entry, we got a lively conversation on our hands! Hopefully, I’ll get some kind of dialogue going. I doubt it, but its nice to wish…

Now everyone has been out in public and seen a kid cut a fool on their parents. They scream, whine, pout and throw things. Sometimes they even get bold enough to use foul language. How many times have you seen this happen and roll your eyes, shake your head and walk off thinking to yourself, “I would beat the brakes off of his/her little bad ass!” Don’t lie, we’ve all wanted to interject on these episodes and deliver a swift ass kicking to the child. Maybe even the parent. But how would you feel if you were the parent in that situation? If your kid was cutting a fool in the middle of Wal-mart, would you welcome some stranger’s opinion of how you should deal with them?

Now, I’m not writing this to say that parents shouldn’t tear off in their kid’s asses when it is necessary. I personally think that if you’re kids step out of line, its your duty as a parent to do whatever is in your power to put them back in place. Sometimes you’re able to do that with stern words. But there are other times when a stiff pop in the mouth is required. I’m writing this to say that I think we, as members of society, should be more understanding of other people’s situations. Everybody doesn’t believe in spanking their kids. That’s their choice. But quit walking around, looking down your nose at them and talking about what you would do. Because I’m willing to bet that if any of us were placed in the same situation, we would freeze in our tracks. Especially when you consider the way the law looks at corporal punishment. When I was kid, if I went to school with a bruise, my teachers deemed it the result of me just being a kid. Nowadays, these teachers are programmed to overreact to the slightest injury that doesn’t occur on school grounds. In our somewhat misguided attempt to protect all kids from being abused, we’ve taken away a parent’s most effective tool for ensuring that their children behave.

This doesn’t just affect the parent’s ability to discipline their kids, it can also affect a teacher’s ability to retain order in the classroom. Especially when it comes to teachers that deal with small children. I remember being a kid and watching my peers act out at school and all the teacher had to say was, “I’m going to call your parents.” Everybody sat their ass done, purely out of fear of having mom or dad come up to the school and beat our asses in the hallway, within earshot of our classmates. How embarrassing is that? Not only do you get dragged out of class by an upset parent, but you get a whooping on the spot and have to deal with being teased for the rest of the day. And its not like you could really do anything to defend yourself against the other kids, because you were already in trouble and didn’t want to compound whatever was waiting for you when you arrived home by getting into a fight.

I can just imagine an elementary school teacher trying to use that tactic on today’s kids. Little Bobby is running around, terrorizing his classmates. His teacher, Ms. Adams, pleads with Bobby to take his seat to no avail. Finally, at her wit’s ends, Ms. Adams threatens to call Bobby’s mother if he doesn’t settle down. And I could just see Bobby responding to Ms. Adams by saying, “Bitch please! She ain’t gonna do nothing!” What is poor Ms. Adams supposed to do with unruly ass Bobby? Now imagine if she had 5 kids like that, or 10. The teacher would end up spending more time trying to get a handful of kids to behave instead of trying to educate those that have some home training.

The biggest thing I think needs to happen is that fear needs to be re-established in today’s kids. I was afraid of doing anything too wild because I wasn’t sure how my dad would react. I caught a vicious ass beating for “shit” in his general presence after dropping something on my foot when I was an adolescent, how would he react to me calling a female a bitch? I remember getting punched like I was a grown man in a street fight for coming home drunk once, how would he respond to having to come bail me out of jail? These were the kind of thoughts that ran through my head as a kid whenever I thought about doing something I didn’t have any business doing. Maybe if more kids thought their parents might flip out over the small stuff, they would be scared of doing anything that would warrant that kind of response.

That’s all I got for today, or at least for right now. I might be back later with another topic. But until then, peace and love…