On Wooden Spoons

Many women of my mother’s generation often used a wooden spoon to get their children in line. Some of them used the spoon to hit their children, some flung it at their kids as they ran away, and other just used it for emphasis—banging it on the countertop as they yelled. And just hearing the drawer slam open was enough to invite fear--the oh no now we’re gonna get it. But it is okay. I am not judging. We survived. And we have forgiven our mothers because that was what they knew to do—they didn’t know other ways to discipline. But when you know better, you do better.

My generation believed in “time outs.”  In my house out of control children were forced to sit on the step near the kitchen until the craziness stopped. (The best part of the time out was that I in effect got one too—the time out kept me from killing my children.) And we (my generation) also read  all kinds of parenting books, and watched lots of Dr. Phil. And many of us took parenting courses---I was one of them.

And I can remember that the psychologist who taught the course saying that the most important thing a parent could do was to follow through—to say what you mean and mean what you say. And when asked if it was ever permissible to hit your children she said unequivocally no. But she also said that if you were foolish enough to threaten your child with a smack upside the head, and the child did not heed the warning, and the rock and the hard spot was whether to follow through and smack the upside of your child’s head or not follow through and not smack him—the lesser of the 2 evils was to smack them—but just once—not to inflict harm—just to demonstrate that all actions have consequences.

I also remember learning that time outs work best when they are immediate. It is key that demonstrated bad behavior is followed by a quick and swift removal---kind of like when you have a puppy. When you are training puppies you must catch them in the act of urinating in the house and then move them outdoors for the puppy to understand that he has done something wrong. If the puppy has urinated 10 minutes ago the window for learning is erased—too much time has passed. The same hold true for children. Children do not understand clocks or time very well. Telling a child in the food store when the child is misbehaving that when they get home they will get a time out doesn’t work as well as when the child is in their own house and the punishment happens right now.

And as children get older, they bank on the fact that by the time you get home you may forget about the time out or worse, they become wise to the fact that if they demonstrate the bad behavior in locations where parents are helpless, the consequences, by nature of the locale, is slight. Which is why there is nothing more frustrating to a parent than when a child misbehaves in the car. The child knows that the parent is powerless to prevent the behavior—the parent is concentrating on driving and is seat-belted in a finite space. All the parent has is words—and they cannot enforce a time out in the car---or at least not very well.

So when Samantha was sitting the front seat of the car and turning around to hit her sister Briana with Malibu Barbie all I could do was tell her to stop hitting her sister. And Samantha was old enough to realize that driving left me incapacitated to initiate a firm cease fire. So despite my stern words Samantha kept ever so lightly making contact between Barbies’ long luxurious hair and Briana’s knee. And even though I knew it was wrong I said Samantha if you don’t stop annoying your sister I am going to smack you. And Samantha smacked Briana with Barbie anyway. And now I had dug myself in a hole. Follow though was mandatory despite the fact that corporal punishment is wrong. And so as if my right arm was on a door hinge, spasmodically, in rapid fire, the back side of my hand swung and smacked Sam squarely in the chest and snapped back into its place on the wheel. And I said I told you to stop! And she was so taken back and shocked that I had dared to smack her that she immediately retreated.

Now I am not saying that what I did was right. It was not. Two wrongs never make a right. I was the adult. I should have known better. All the parenting books, Dr. Phil and my parenting teacher said so. But it did have a chilling effect. I said what I meant and I meant what I said. The bad behavior had a consequence. And that was what was important. I learned my lesson to not say things that I did not mean to say and my kids understood that Mom walked her talk. So no one ended up in therapy or on Oprah or in jail.

And when I converse with my peers about wooden spoons and our mothers who now deny they ever used them-- we laugh. And we secretly covet that utensil and wish we could wield the same power that our mothers did. Because even though when you know better you do better, occasionally ignorance is bliss. And when I was a kid and my friend who lived next door got his mouth washed out with soap for saying a curse word, I can tell you he didn’t do it again—and neither did any of the other neighborhood children who heard about the incident. And all our mothers would have to say to us was—you know what happened to Jesse when he used bad words don’t you?  And that was enough to stop the use of bad words from all of the children in the entire neighborhood. My poor friend took a hit for the team—quite literally. His consequence became our consequence. And we children did better inspired by fear, because we didn’t know any better. So sometimes even when you don’t know better, you still can do better.