My Mother’s Knobby Knuckles

This is my thought for today. Of course if you don’t agree, that’s fine. Don’t get bent out of shape. Just reply or message me. It is kinda long because I am feeling sad for my jail students who nearly always recall some physical abuse in their childhood..

Real adults don’t hit, punch or pummel others. That means that if you are mature and adult, you have other ways to communicate. Some women want to gig men into hitting them to get attention and drama. They deride, degrade and disintegrate men to get what they desire! Some women get what they want with the poison of personal abuse. Some men hit because they are twelve-year-olds in large bodies and don’t know what else to do.

Hitting someone is generally a bully’s way of expressing their personal sense of hurt, frustration and pain. They lash out because they don’t know how to make life return to a comfortable ‘normal’ again. I have learned a valuable lesson in my life about discipline. Discipline is about a relationship of love, not physical abuse.

Kids get “hit” because parents don’t have a clue what else to do. My mom used to knob me on my “bony little head” with her knuckle to get my rather lax attention and then look deeply into my eyes and talk to me at my comprehension level. When I was an adult I listened not because she knobbed me but because she looked me in the eyes and talked to her blue-eyed baby girl that she loved very much. I don’t remember ever getting spanked or slapped by my parents.

But, smacking a kid on the butt when they run out into the street is a pretty effective way to physically exclaim, “Don’t do things like that, I am terrified you will die and I love you with everything that I am!” On the other hand, waiting until daddy gets home to do it is saying “You’re stupid, you need a spankin’ for being stupid and I don’t wanna do it so your big, evil daddy has to do it.” Then who is stupid? Shaking and slapping a kid or spanking for dribbling cereal on the carpet tells the kid that hitting is just fine in these situations. IT IS NOT. It proves that you didn’t teach the kid well and you are frustrated with yourself for their errors.

What I have learned in 62 years is that kids don’t forget it, EVER. Do you want them to remember you as someone who hit them? If you care how you send them out in life, why not just knob yourself, show them how to clean it up, and be a better teacher/parent next time?