When is it going to be okay to parent our children again? I feel like as long as I have my children at home it is easy to implement rules and structure but as soon as we go anywhere, I start to cower a bit in my punishments or reprimands because I don't know how anyone else will react to it. If my daughter talked to me at home the way she does when we are out, she'd get a firm talking-to and possibly a spanking if she doesn't straighten up. But in public, I rarely (if ever) spank her. She tends to act out more when we're in public, too. (What a surprise.) I spanked London one time when we were at a restaurant after she was repeatedly doing something that got her into trouble. I got up, grabbed her hand, walked calmly to the restroom, and spanked her a couple times on the butt over her clothes. She straightened up and we went about our dinner! (It worked!) Then our server, who happened to be a close friend of mine, came up and said that a lady at one of the tables by the bathroom had just gone up to her manager and said "Um, there's a woman beating her child in the bathroom. You should probably do something about that."

You silly bitch. People like this woman make me want to grab them by the ears and scream DIRECTLY into their face, hopefully forcing flecks of sputum straight up their noses. Fuck you and that high horse you rode in here on. You don't know me or my daughter, you don't know the situation, and I should take you into the restroom and beat you! You OBVIOUSLY don't have children, and if you do have children and have never been faced with the reality that your own dear sweet child is a brat and needs to be put in her place, then your child is a robot. There is a clear difference between spanking a child and them crying about it (let's face it, it sucks to be spanked) and beating a child. You can't just throw words like that around.

Nevertheless, I stopped spanking her for a really long time after that. I don't know if it is even an effective punishment. I just started sitting her in time-out (What a fucking joke that is, time-out? I had to literally hold her in the corner while she screamed bloodcurdlingly), started taking her things away (surprisingly effective for a little while). But as of late, she is just becoming nuts, I swear! Glittery nail polish on the toilet seat, so I took her nail polish away. Cut her hair off, so I took the scissors away. By the way, she's almost 7. She never got into anything when she was a baby and toddler but now? Jeez. She's ripped off our wallpaper (in a rental), written on the walls, written on furniture, sprayed an entire bottle of my perfume upstairs (No, I didn't, Mommy! I CAN SMELL IT, LONDON!) covered the peroxide bottle in her brother's diaper rash cream..... The list goes on and on. It's been like this for months now.

I feel horrible when I spank her. It has become the most effective LAST RESORT sort of punishment. Like last night. I went upstairs to lay her baby brother down (he just turned one) and was up there for 10-15 minutes before she finally got sent upstairs for complaining about the food on her plate for the previous hour. She comes up the stairs screaming like a banshee about how she's not tired and doesn't want to go to sleep. I almost had him asleep before all of this and I got pissed. I went into her room and told her if she didn't stop screaming like that, that I was going to give her a reason to cry. (Oooooh, my mom used to say that to me!) I went and laid back down, hoping she'd stop. But nooooooo. She's got to sit there pounding her dirty bare feet on her white wall, thrashing and making so much noise that I get BACK out of bed and spank her. One, two, three spanks, and she shut up. Zipped her mouth and laid down, eventually going to sleep.

But I was in my bed, trying to console the baby, who didn't know what the hell was going on and was scared. He didn't like hearing Mommy be mean like that. And then I cried silently in my room for a little while, thinking about how much I hated being a parent at times like these. It's not fair. I want her to become a decent human being and that means showing her right from wrong. I want to be that parent that gives her kids whatever they want, but I care more about them than someone who would do that. Giving them everything they want will turn them into pompous & entitled assholes! Whatever. Punishing kids is the hardest thing parents have to do, and when people in public scare you to the point of not being able to punish them, then what? I have resorted to scare tactics as of late. The mean mom eye accompanied by a low whisper of, "Do what you want now. Remember though, you have to come home with me. None of these people will be there. Remember that." I can be pretty scary when I want to be, and so far, it works a little bit.

If anyone has any suggestions on how to punish children without spanking them, I'd love to hear it. I need something new. I tried acting like I was going to drop her off at "kiddie jail" where they jail kids who are naughty. That just made her cry, sooooo yeah.