Awww... Bless Your Heart

There is so much controversy about spanking or how to discipline your child these days. Books upon books are written, and articles and news stories and psychological studies. I know, I’ve read a ton of them. I’ve talked to a ton of people about it. I’ve asked opinions everywhere. I’ve picked the brains of many, including ministers, friends with children, friends without children, friends who were spanked growing up, friends who weren’t, friends who were abused, friends who weren’t, family, doctors, speech therapists, strangers. Everyone has a different answer or theory from the obvious “Spare the rod and spoil the child” to “If you spank your child it causes sexual deviation.” Really? So, I won’t tell you my opinion here about whether or not to spank your children, or whether or not we do, but what I will tell you is that as long as there is no abuse to how you discipline your child, the consensus is that it really comes down to how the parents feel, how the child reacts, and that you are consistent with your discipline and NEVER EVER hit out of anger.

What I will tell you is that we have decided, because of trying to avoid spanking, that we will on the rare occasion “pinch” our child when we have deemed it the appropriate punishment. This avoids spanking and is something that we barely have to use any pressure or inflict any pain but gets a good response where our rambunctious boys will quickly stop their unwanted behavior if threatened with. Whether you think it is wrong or not, it is what we are comfortable with.

The other day my husband, my two sons, and I were at the flea market. We put Noah, the three-year old, in his stroller for his own safety. There was a big enough crowd there and enough cars driving by that we felt he was safest confined to the stroller. While we were there Noah often tried to get out of the stroller. When he did he would walk with us for a little bit, then run off, which of course is dangerous as he could easily get lost or stolen. So, we decided to leave the flea market because it was proving difficult with Noah. On our way out, with Noah in his stroller, I admit something caught my eye and I stopped for a moment. Noah proceeded to try to climb out of his stroller again. My husband, Brian, simply said to him “If you climb out again I’m going to have to pinch you.” A woman a few feet away just had to say something to Brian, chiming in “Why don’t I pinch you!”

Really? Are we going to go there? Of course this situation escalated and things were said. In the end, Brian and I just wound up walking away from this ignorant woman and with this being the first time we were ever called out on something like this, and the first time we were ever accused of improperly treating our children, we spent the better part of the next couple of hours discussing it amongst ourselves. We talked about what happened with the kids, how we handled them, should we have handled them differently, what the woman said, what Brian said in response, and so on. Secretly I churned over in my mind that I should have come to my husband’s defense in the argument instead of just telling him to ignore her and walk away.  We did both agree of course, that if a child is truly being abused either one of us would step in and say something, or even call the police. In fact my husband once witnessed such a sad offense by a father, spanking his child over and over again for an extended length of time in a parking lot. He didn’t call the police and still to this day wishes he had. We learned a lesson from that experience.

What we did decide in the end is that the only thing we should have said to her was “Awww… Bless your heart.”

• Bless your heart that you too care so much about children.
• Bless your heart that you too want to protect all the children in the world.
• Bless your heart that you think the threat of a pinch, and not an actual pinch, is child abuse.
• Bless your heart that you feel so strongly about your convictions that you would stand up against my husband, who you now apparently believe is committing assault and battery against my son, who could pummel you in a second if he was in fact such a violent man.
• Bless your heart that you have a 6-month old in your stroller and have never had to discipline your child yet. When ours was 6-month old we too were completely against ever having to raise a hand or finger to our children and vowed that such forms of discipline are completely wrong. How could anyone ever even consider such a thing?!
• Bless your heart that you think from a short sentence said to our own child that we are scarring our child, and not in fact keeping him from immanent danger of getting run over by a car.
• Bless your heart that you didn’t see that as soon as my husband said such a horrible thing to my son he sat back down in his stroller without even fussing and was safe and sound.
• Bless your heart for not knowing that I once had to have an all afternoon and evening debate with myself and husband and call on various friends and family for advice on how to properly discipline my two children for their horrendous behavior that wound up with huge discussions on whether or not we should spank our children, what are proper forms of punishment, if spanking is correct, how to correctly spank, etc. etc. Yes, an abusive parent would do this…
• Bless your heart for not knowing that I once threatened to spank my son with a spoon, at the advice of my Italian friend, but never actually followed through with it. Yet the threat was good enough because he has never since done that same offense and sometimes when I ask him what he thinks his proper punishment should be for something he actually tells me I probably should spank him with a spoon because he did something so naughty. But yet, I’ve never actually done this or hit him with ANYTHING!
• Bless your heart that you have this tried and true Yankee saying, and now truly understanding, the meaning of “bless your heart.”
• Bless your heart that you can come to judge people so quickly and adamantly think your judgment is the correct one, no matter what is said.
• Bless your heart that you don’t know that we live and would die for our children and do everything in our power to protect and love our children.
• Bless your heart that you don’t know that we sacrifice EVERYTHING for our children and every decision we make in our lives now always involves thinking about how it will effect and benefit our children.
• Bless your heart that you don’t think you need to know someone’s situation before calling them out on something you know nothing about.
• Bless your heart that you have the gall to say such things to us, especially in front of our children and start a fight with us in front of our children.
• Bless your heart that no matter what is said you will stick to your guns and insist you are correct and that the police should be called on such horrible violence as the threat of a pinch.
• Bless your heart that you actually think the police would arrest someone for lightly pinching their son, even though you didn’t actually witness said offense.
• Bless your heart that you have never had a three-year old and five-year old son at the same time that you have to keep safe and sound at all times, no matter what they do, where they run, what they jump off of, what strangers they think are safe to go talk to, what plugs they think they can stick things into, what chemicals they think they should spray in their eyes AND taste…
• Bless your heart that you think child rearing is only black and white, with no shades of grey.

So, to parents out there, whether they think they have the answers or are still searching for the answers, I say just one thing to you: “Awww… Bless your heart.”