Cursed Tongue: Spanking Good Advice

Posted by CursedTongue on October 12, 2006

There’s something about babies that turns people into authorities on the parenting abilities of complete strangers. Much like 5-month-old Suri Cruise drawn to the lime light, people who appear normal walk up to babies they don’t know, coo over them, pinch their cheeks and give helpful unsolicited advice to the caregiver of said child.

At least it’s easy to blow off advice from strangers. The real threat is unwanted advice from friends and family. My brother recently announced the impending birth of Rodney. Rodney is his nickname for the fetus that his wife is gestating. (Kind of takes the magic out of it, phrased in technical terms, doesn’t it?) My sister-in-law mentioned getting a bassinet to keep in the bedroom, and my Dad told her that he was sure it was never a good idea to let your baby sleep in the room with you.

My responsible adult sister-in-law with young nieces and nephews and therefore probably more firsthand and recent experience with children than Dad, didn’t change her mind about a bassinet. But she seemed taken aback by the condemnation of bassinets and questioned the reasons behind banishing a newborn to his or her own room. His source was Mom, whose reasoning was that bassinets and cradles (despite the lyrics of Rock-a-Bye Baby) don’t grow on trees and babies grow out of bassinets quickly.

Speaking with my sister-in-law later, she described the deluge of child-rearing advice and her difficulties in beating it off with an unspared rod. Apparently, if every nugget of parenting wisdom they’ve received was worth a dollar, that baby would have a college fund of more than $1,000, and Rodney won’t even be born until March. At that rate and with compound interest Rodney would be well on his or her way to an Ivy League school.

I myself was once a victim for busy bodies and sweet-little-old ladies. Because we lived near a future Superfund Site, I was born with feet that turned outwards instead of inwards and before they were corrected, my parents put my shoes on opposite feet. (I know Superfund sounds like a good thing, but really it means that the Air Force was contaminating the environment with jet fuel and chemicals with names that make the word anthrax sound friendly.)

There are Nanas and Omas and Meemaws of all sizes and descriptions who would sidle up to my stroller, notify my parents of this flagrant error. They would then proceed to take off my shoes and switch them for my parents, who obviously were too stupid too be breeding. It speaks to the many things people do that seem brainless, but are really based on some kind of logical reasoning that’s unapparent to the casual observer at the mall.

Even when forced to sit in a waiting room with a screaming 2-year-old, I didn’t offer advice when the mother’s ineffective solution was to spank the child. Maybe there were honest to goodness reasons that she let her child scream louder than Howard Dean, at a decibel which made my ears feel like they were bleeding each of the many times he did it.

Maybe what I perceived as screams that pierced my sinus-infection-ridden head like hot titanium lances, were actually prescribed therapeutic lung exercises for asthma. Or maybe he was training for the Bloodcurdling competition in the Spooky Olympics. Perhaps, carrying a couple of toys around for the child was too much of an imposition for his mom. Or maybe she really needed to whine about the carpool over her cell phone because her therapist was out of town, and therefore playing “I Spy” with her bored-to-screams child was out of the question.

It was no wonder he made several escape attempts, but I still thought better of sharing valuable theories on the brain development of 2-year-olds with her. I was more annoyed than a narcissist struck by laryngitis, and in considerable pain, but I know that it’s the mother’s prerogative to screw her kid up. Even if her utter lack of parenting finesse irritates everyone within a 10-yard radius.

This is America, Land of the Free to do Irreparable Physiological Damage to Offspring, Home of the Bravely Ignorant of Anything that Doesn’t Have Its Own Made for TV Movie. And I would have been rewarded with a frosty gorgon stare of “Mind your own damn business,” if I had voiced my opinion about her lack of anything resembling parenting skills.

Despite my Buddhist-monk control, I did find myself telling my brother that Rodney would suffer neurological damage if he didn’t turn down his car stereo. There might be scientific studies on the synaptic benefits of blasting fetuses with Eminem, for all I know. But honestly, the advice was kind of self-serving. I like being able to hear.

Although it was still gratifying on some level when I heard my sister-in-law repeat my concerns, after my brother shouted in her ear because he thought it was funny. Of course, I know that she said it because she probably likes to hear, too.

- Sarah Letnes

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Tags: babies, children, humor

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