Pull My Finger
by: Shannon Michele Johnston
may 2000

WHAT THE FUCK?

     The whole thing just really stinks. This child discipline thing. There Congress goes again fucking society up more than it already was. And just who the fuck are THEY to tell me I can't spank my kids anyway! That was a statement, not a question.
     I know, I know, there is a shit-load of thoughts on this controversy of controversies, that sits on its throne next to abortion. Now, we could go on about both of these two issues all fucking night. I'll sit and watch you smoke your glass pipe, drink pots of caffeine or whtever it is you do for energy, I don't need to, these issues fire me up enough already. I know I need to save the abortion thing for a future article, but for the purpose of this one, I need to weave some abortion thoughts here and now. Then, you will see where I am going with this...I hope! Just a brief abortion history---abortions were legalized up to the 14th week because too many women were either clothes-hangering themselves to death, or paying some one else to do it, thus, the killing of unborn babies commenced legally.
     Then, in 1973, our beloved Congress took things into its infinitely benevolent hands once again and gave us women "The Right To Choose" to kill our babies all the way up to the hour of birth with Roe vs. Wade. Wasn't that sweet?
     I know there are a lot of fast-tracked, jet-setting hunnies that wouldn't bat an eye at offing their unborn to keep from stretching anything precious. But, my question at this point is...where the fuck is the birth control ladies? It's out there...USE IT! And if you need to get fucked worse than you need to grab a condom, or whatever, you're seriously fucking up, you hoes!
     Then we have those fanatical-shoot-to-kill anti-abortion groups that DO shoot to kill abortionists (I can't call the motherfuckers doctors), abortion advocates and those who are about to get one. I don't know if you're with me on this or not (who gives a shit anyway, it's how I feel and that's what matters), and none of this makes any fucking sense.
     Time to move on to Congressional fuck up #2: child discipline, or the lack thereof. Sometime back in the 80's Congress, in order to fight the growing child abuse epidemic, gave us another new law, "Thou shalt not spank thy children." My thoughts on this are, FUCK THAT!
     Why? Because what they put in the place of a good old fashioned spank on the ass are parenting programs, classes and counseling efforts, that we parents neither have the tenacity nor the time to attend and learn, let alone subsequently apply. A three year-old about to dump a box of cereal on the floor understands a meaningful spanking a whole lot sooner than it understands an infomercial on the evils of cereal dumping. And after your twenty minute dissertation the little shit is going to dump the cereal anyway.
     We also find ourselves, in the absence of a "whoopin", resorting to crimes of the most heinous kind; verbal, emotional and psychological abuses that not only hurt, but scar for life, producing psychologically traumatized, sociopaths...we don't mean to do it we just do, these are expedient disciplines and far more harmful than a slap on the ass. Go to any maximum security prison and interview the hard cores there---you will unearth the source of their aggression that caused them to act out the crime that landed them in prison---say it with me--- psycho-log-i-cal trau-ma.
     We also don't have time to reason with a group of kids that want to argue and fight with you in the middle of making dinner, to sit them down and offer alternatives and consequences trying to "reason" with them. Sure, you can always tell them it is not the time and dismiss them stomping off to their rooms in door-slamming protest. Something that really pisses me off, at that point dinner waits and I go in and do my "thing." And if you don't wait dinner by addressing this little bit of difficulty and let it go, they win, and you have just reinforced their "free" (meaning no cost to them) and negative behavior. Then, by the time they are thirteen you want to just knock the shit out of them all of the time and we can't have that either.
     My favorite place is always the grocery store, and they learn this really early. They know you wouldn't dare spank them in public, so they push every possible limit, they are taking advantage, they know, they LOVE it!
     So, what happens then? We are frazzled, pissed and yell all the way home. You know what that teaches THEM to do? It teaches them to be yellers also, and any little upset will trigger a huge spasm of yelling, and in that environment anyone would go nuts. Just ask me.
     The inability to spank has made monsters out of many mothers, rather than being able to defuse these haranguing experiences with a swift slap on the ass of an unruly child, they bottle it up, convinced that spanking would make them a horrible mother and they eventually SNAP and light the house on fire with the children sleeping inside, or strangle all six of them one by one.
     How exactly would you pull that off? How would you figure out the order of that, start with the oldest and work your way down to the youngest? I guess once you've gotten that despondent, it doesn't really matter does it? It would be a time when you just start grabbing necks at random. The house fire one, seems a little cleaner, a little quicker, but then there is always the- ole-car-down-the-boat- ramp trick. A real classic. You could always just lock them up in a fucking cage to keep them from pissing you off in the first place. And if you read the papers or watch the news you know what I'm talking about.
     I am not saying to grab your kid and whack the shit out of it, just a good old fashioned spanking on the rear. You'd be amazed at how many hassles, gray hairs and psychopathic weirdos it would save.

Shannon Michele Johnston
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