Remember: Spanking, while cathartic, merely increases the noise, and you can’t beat your kids for being tired or hungry. Save the physical abuse for something special, like when they crash your car or get into your liquor.
Kids let you know it’s coming. Their eyes grow dead and dull, like a killer’s. Their limbs jerk, and their sticky hands begin frantically searching for hair to pull. They start shouting, “No!” and “I can do it by MYSELF.” You have only seconds to decide: Do you finish up what you’re doing, or leave?
It depends where you are. Should other people be subjected to your kid’s tantrum? Not at a movie, restaurant, or church. Basically, any place with a cover charge. (And tithing is a cover charge—to God.) Don’t be a dick and ruin someone else’s good time. Yes, it sucks, but it’s temporary. Before you know it, your awful toddler will morph into a sullen teenager that will refuse to be seen with you.
Then you’re home free.
However, if you’re at the mall or any store that sells kids’ stuff, it’s your call. Absolve yourself of guilt. Stores are trying to attract your child’s attention. They want her to terrorize you until you are too tired to fight back. They arrange their shelves so that she will repeat “I want” a hundred times in a row until you sigh “All right” and buy her the doll, the action figure, or the Snickers bar.
Stores get what they deserve.
Target and Walmart ought to have alarms that moms can sound when they spot a warning sign. Ideally, a winged Target Team Member would fly you, your child, and your full cart to the parking lot. As you buckle in your kid, the Target Team Member would ring up your purchases, then put them in the car. And, while we’re fantasizing, it would be nice if all tantrums occurred at a Victoria’s Secret. To let their customers know that lingerie has consequences.
You may feel you ought to leave before your business is taken care of.
“Everyone’s looking at me and thinking I’m a terrible mother,” you fear. Well, you are right. They are. But what those people don’t know is that you are providing a service. Your child is a PSA on parenthood. Because of you, condom sales are skyrocketing. The mall’s office supply store is experiencing a run on Sharpie pens, bought by young women who will use them to write “Take BC pill!” on the back of their hands. All so they don’t become you: a trapped, helpless thing at the mall. Your child is contributing to the local economy. Pat her on the back—once she stops arching it. If people won’t think you’re a terrible mom, they will think that motherhood is a terrible thing.
If you refuse to cave in, look in your purse. Do you have food? No? Can you take some off a store shelf and pay for it when you get to the cash register? Do that. Then buy a Sharpie pen from the office supply store and write “Bring food!” on the back of your hand.
Remember: Spanking, while cathartic, merely increases the noise, and you can’t beat your kids for being tired or hungry. Save the physical abuse for something special, like when they crash your car or get into your liquor.