Day # 137 - Boys Will Be Jerks

Yesterday was my daughter's birthday. We ended the day at the park. There we other kids there. Abby and I walked the track adjacent to the playground while the girls played. At one point Melissa comes over and tells us that there is a boy messing with her, calling her names, etc. His mother is within earshot. We're not, so we decide to sit down near the playground.

Soon enough, Melissa and the little boy are wrestling. We break it up. The boy was actually physically attacking my daughter. The mother tells him to apologize and he refuses. We leave. Melissa is very upset, crying, and we spend the next hour trying to get her to understand why the little twerp wasn't worth the aggravation.

What aggravated me was his mother. If I ever caught one of my sons hitting a girl, I would have gone to jail for whipping the kid to within inches of his life. No way would I permit that. It leaves me with questions like, where did he learn that it's okay for a boy to hit a girl? When is it okay to disobey your mother? After all, she told him to apologize and he flatly refused.

I was never one to hit my kids, but if that had been my son, he'd be out there right now with a flashlight looking for his teeth.

Part of me wanted to laugh and I wasn't rude about it, I just took my daughters home. It was getting late and today being a school day, they needed to shower and get to bed. The truth is, part of me wanted to let her sucker-punch the little snot. Put him on his hindquarters and traumatize him real good.

But, what does it solve? I can't use my children to discipline other people's kids, but that kid better watch his but.

If you are a parent of boys, teach them to be gentlemen. The things we are allowed to get away with as kids are the things we will expect to get away with as adults. If there are no consequences for a boy hitting a girl, why should that boy expect consequences when he becomes a man and he strikes a woman?

This doesn't just apply to domestic violence, but to all behaviors. We let our kids eat whatever they want, then we lose it when they're fat or won't eat their vegetables. We let them stay up late and yell when they don't wake up for school. We curse in front of them and wonder where the gutter language comes from. I have witnessed the cycles of ignorance and poverty perpetuate themselves my whole life. I have seen people who have nothing want the same for their kids. People who made the wrong choices in life refusing to accept responsibility for their choices by telling their kids that it's because of their race, ethnicity, gender, or social status, and telling their kids they can expect the same. What greater sin is there than to condemn your children to repeat your mistakes?

By not disciplining her child, the woman at the park was planting a strangler vine in the garden of his life. By allowing him to bully a girl, she is teaching him that this is the way to get a woman to fall in line. The punishment should have been harsh and severe. Not because it was my little girl, but because twenty years from now, it will be someone else's little girl.

Spare the rod, spoil the child. Oh well, better theirs than mine,

God bless you. Make it your best day yet.

- Adolfo

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