Dr. Make 'em Good

Here's a flash memoir on parental discipline.  You know, the spare the rod, spoil the child kinda stuff.

I come from a family of four kids--three boys, then me.  Mom planned to have as many kids as it took to get a girl.  Thankfully, it only took four tries. 

As you might imagine, being the youngest child and the only girl, I was spoiled. I could get my brothers in trouble just by saying, “Daddy, Geof farted on my head!” Or, “Daddy, John brandished a fork at me.”  In less than thirty seconds, Dad’s belt would slide out of its loops and he’d drag the accused brother by the ear into his bedroom for a whipping.

On the other hand, Mom was in charge of disciplining me. The mode of discipline for me was not the belt; it was “The Big Hand.” Mom was supposed to spank me whenever I got in trouble. The only problem was, she never could catch me.

I’d run down the hall and into my bedroom.  I'd dive headfirst under my bed.  Mom would grab  hold of the French Provincial foot board and whip my bed to the other side of the room. She wasn't super strong or anything.  It was just that we had hardwood floors at the time.  It was before it was cool to have wall to wall carpeting, before my parents let me pick out lime green shag carpet.

Since she couldn't get at me, Mom would slide the bed back to the other side of the room.  I'd do whatever it took to stay under it,  ignoring the pain of hardwood floor burns on my knees.

Sometimes I hid behind the sofa in the living room with Holly, our half Beagle, half Spitz dog. Mom would reach behind the couch, her hand like a claw trying to grab something, anything. Holly and I’d scoot just out of range. Mom would trot to the other side of the couch, move the Ethan Allen side table, and try to reach me from that end.  I’d do the army crawl  back to the original spot and Holly would stick close to me, tail tucked.

Mom always gave up. Not once do I remember actually experiencing “The Big Hand.”  Hence, the spoiling.

Dad wasn't so fortunate in his childhood.  He never escaped discipline.  He was one of five boys, all born at home to a strong woman named Flora. My brothers and I knew her as Granny. Mom tells me I parent like her.  I’m not sure what she means by that, but I think our kids have turned out pretty well so I take it as a compliment. My parenting philosophy has pretty much always been, “Whatever my parents did, do the opposite.”   That's why I've never said, "Your face is gonna freeze like that." Or, "I'll give you something to cry about!"

Whenever Dad was in need of negative reinforcement, Granny would say, "DooDoo, go out and cut yourself a switch from the oak tree."  DooDoo was Granny's pet name for my dad.  I know.  Being called DooDoo by your mother is punishment enough but that was never enough for her.  She always followed through with  the cut-yourself-a-switch thing. 

Once Dad returned to the house with his own instrument of pain (kinda like Jesus carrying his own cross, don't you think?) she’d say, "Now, DooDoo.  Drop your britches."  Then she'd whip him on the back of the legs, sometimes 'til she drew blood (again, not unlike Jesus). She called her punishment method, “Dr. Make ‘Em Good.” I thought that was hilarious—the name, not the fact that she made the boys bleed.

I know I said I parent like Granny but please believe (and Child Protective Services, this means you) that I've never utilized the Dr. Make 'em Good system of discipline.  Once we switched from timeouts to spanking, my mode of discipline was the extra large Pampered Chef spatula.  It always did the trick.  I only remember having to spank each child once or twice.  From then on, they were pretty quick to obey.  

I can honestly say, our children are not spoiled.  Loved lavishly--yes, but spoiled--no.

And then there were none . . .

"Hold still!" I said to my son as I took a picture of him, coming down the front steps this morning. I do it every year on the first day of school. I capture his size, his hairstyle, his outfit, forever. I have pictures of all three kids on the first and last days of school. If only I scrapbooked.

This morning as I put my son on the bus yet again, I remembered the day I sent him off to kindergarten. The bus pulled away and I cried but I smiled too. I felt alone but I also felt free.

I stayed on the corner, squinting at the horizon. Something was out there, way out there. I put my hand over my eyebrows to shield my sight from the glare. A breeze nudged my hair. Its coolness made me shiver. In my gut, in my spirit, I knew everything was changing.

I walked back to the house, considering my life. The last year and the one before that had been like a black and white photograph. No, that’s not right. There was always color, but the color was washed out--pastel and weak with undertones of grey. Personally, I don’t care for pastels. I think they’re wimpy.

When I got to the house I sat on the porch and thought about how for the past four years or so, I wanted more. And then recently, I wanted much more. For the longest time I'd felt like a sleepy caterpillar in a dry and raspy, mocha latte-colored cocoon. I longed to be a butterfly, an aqua and magenta butterfly, starting to nudge and poke and kickbox my way out of the dustiness. I wanted freshness, greenness, sunshine and new life to fill me and my veins to overflowing.

I put my head in my hands and my elbows on my knees. I remembered how it felt like my life was a bellcurve. I was climbing the left side, inch-worming towards the top. It seemed to take the longest time until my son got on the bus that first day. Once he started school, the plummet began.

I started sliding down the other side, slow at first but then I gathered speed. I gathered other stuff too--power, joy and assurance. Assurance that this is the life I was created to live.

God whispered things to my spirit. “You’re getting warmer. . . stay on this path . . . don’t go through that door . . . .” He sent me people and even songs that echoed his will for me. “Go for it! Fulfill your destiny, the one I wrote for you centuries, millennia ago.”

Finally, I had ears to hear. Finally, I believed what God had told me all along. “Your life will count, beloved. Your life will count for the kingdom.”

There would be no more, “most men lead lives of quiet desperation” for me. Henry David Thoreau can keep his quiet desperation! What a snore! I want more than a grey rag of a life!

I put my hands over my heart. It felt like God was in there--breathing into a bubble or a balloon inside of me. What would happen if he let go? I imagined it would go, “WHOOOOSHHHH!” It would twist and shout, somersault and dance all over the world in glorious, ecstatic, technicolor bliss.

It's all about the woosh. It's all about the goosh.

This “flash memoir” is for those of you who enjoyed the Baden Baden piece. Remember how that whole thing began with why I don’t have a pierced belly button and went into why I don’t have a tattoo? Well, speaking of my tummy, one night I was reading to my son. He had his head resting on my stomach.

“Your tummy makes such a good pillow, Mommy. It’s all wooshy gooshy.”

“Thanks, buddy. It’s actually called subcutaneous fat.”

I have upon occasion entertained the thought of liposuction but I decided it’s not for me. I’m too much of a chicken to have elective surgery. I’ve had mandatory surgery and believe me, it’s no picnic. It far and away surpassed my estimate of how much of a drag it’d be.

I’ve heard that after getting liposuction you can’t do anything for a couple of weeks. That’s not real practical for a mom, not for me anyway. I’m always going, going, gone. Besides, I think for the rest of my life I’d feel like there was a sign on my back that says, “Outer beauty is so important to me that I paid someone $5,000 to make my tummy flat when in twenty years my butt is going to look like swagged drapery treatments.” And then when that happens, would I have elective surgery to fix that too?

Instead, I just do more sit ups and when I’m wearing a snug dress I don a pair of suck-the-wooshy-gooshy-out-of-me undies and/or panty hose. This does the trick every time!

Stay with me. I’m still on the wooshy gooshy subject but I’m transitioning slightly.

Low rise jeans with flare legs have been fashionable for quite some time now. The trend is heading toward skinny jeans but I'm guessing it’ll take awhile for it to really take hold here in West by God Virginia where I’m pretty sure The National Enquirer outsells InStyle magazine.

I panicked when low rider jeans first came out. I didn’t like them at all. They exposed my woosh. They exposed my goosh. That was before we did the presto change-o thing in our family’s diet (Thank you Pappy—that’s what we called my father-in-law. He died of stomach cancer five years ago and we changed our eating habits quick like a bunny!). When we did that, I lost a bunch of weight. Thank you, Jesus! Suddenly low riders looked good on me. I love ‘em now. Not the super lows, just the kinda lows.

There’s a down side to low riders though. Now, with the whole low rider craze, chubby plumbers aren’t the only ones experiencing crack attacks. Personally I have no desire to reveal my bottom cleavage so I made it a point to buy really long shirts and tuck them in. Then my daughters told me that tucking in screams of “old lady.” So I bought a couple of long, thin tank tops in various colors. If I’m wearing a shirt that isn’t real long I wear one of the tanks under it. This way even if my “main” shirt is a bit on the short side, I won’t expose the world to my wooshy gooshy in front or my heiney (just how do you spell heiney?) cleavage in back. I’m always thinking, always problem solving.