The Times I’ve Had to Stop Myself from Hitting My Kids

I’m going to start this off by saying that I’ve never hit my kids, and I have no intention of ever hitting my kids. I’m not of the belief that violence is the answer, and I will not do it. This is something that drives my mother absolutely insane, as she is a teacher and a parent and a believer that sometimes a light spanking is what it takes to get a kid in order. Having never been a ‘bad’ kid, I wasn’t really spanked growing up. My brother was, but that was a different time. I’m not about to hit my kids to teach them a lesson or because I’m upset with them, and I’m not about to risk losing my kids over a spanking. I’ll come up with other manners of disciplining my children when they misbehave.

At this point in my kids’ lives, they’re pretty good. There have been times that they’ve lost their minds and I’ve become so angry that I have a fleeting thought along the lines of, “Well, this is probably one of those moments that less patient parents decide that shaking their kids or whatever is a genius idea,” but I’ve never done it. It’s kind of comparable to how I feel at night when my husband lies next to me in bed breathing so loudly in my ear I cannot hear anything else and I cannot sleep. I kick him, elbow him, shake him; whatever it takes to shut him up and he just goes right back to it in less than a minute’s time. I give up after a while and lie there fantasizing about sticking his pillow over his head and holding it there until he stops. I’d never do it, but sometimes the thought distracts me from the fact that he’s making me crazy and I’m able to sleep. It’s like that time you fantasize about punching an annoying coworker in the face or tripping the kid that bullied your kid at school. The thought of it makes you feel better, even though you would never, ever act on it.

I’m a mom, and I’m an honest mom. My kids are good, but they’re not perfect. My four-year-old sometimes makes me so insanely crazy that I want to cry. And sometimes I imagine that I lived in a different time, when spanking was a common as breakfast. Sometimes I think about it; but I don’t act on it. There are times in all our lives when we think about hitting our child in some way, shape or form, even though we don’t want to hurt them and never would. There are always those moments – just a few times in which they’ve made us so angry, worried or scared that we think about it for a split second before our common sense and decency takes over and we remember that there are far better and more positive ways for our children to learn life lessons. Raise your hand if you’ve ever been in one of these situations with your kids…

When my 4-year-old dropped our 3 lbs. preemie twin girl

We have twins. They’re 16-months-old. When they were born, they were very small and spent about a week in the NICU. Our daughter was born weighing 3 lbs. 15 oz. and she came home a week after birth weighing the same. Our daughter, now 4, was only 3 when her brother and sister came home, and she was very in love with them. But she didn’t understand that she had to be gentle all the time. When I was pumping one day, she grabbed our daughter off the floor to pick her up from her blanket and as I screamed, “Nooooooooooooooo,” she dropped her. I was terrified. I was horrified, and I was so worried I couldn’t even function. I wanted to grab her and I wanted to shake her and I wanted to ask her what on earth was wrong with her. I didn’t. But I wanted to.

When my toddler ran away from me in the parking lot

I have never wanted to kill my child, but I probably could have when she let go of my hand and went darting across the Publix parking lot in front of traffic to chase the paper she dropped. I was so scared that I wanted to spank her and yell at her and hug her and cry all at the same time. It was very hard for me to deal with this situation after seeing all the cars, the potential danger and the fear in my heart. I do not want to go through that ever again.

When my daughter hit me in the face with her shoe in the store

This was the one time my oldest daughter ever had a meltdown in public. She’s such a gentle and calm child that she never gives us any trouble. Except this particular day. She was so mad that I wouldn’t let her play with my chapstick through the store that she took off her shoe and threw it at me. It hit me square in the face, and it hurt. I wanted to cry. I wanted to take her into the bathroom and spank her bottom and yell, but I didn’t. I kept her shoes, ignored her and got the heck out of the store as quickly as I could check out. I did tell an elderly woman in the parking lot to “Eff off,” when she told me that I’m a bad mother for not letting my screaming child have the shoes she was screaming about, though.

When my daughter had a raging meltdown at 10 pm because we wouldn’t let her get out of bed and take another bath

There was a time I had the flu. I was dying. I was certain of it. It was so bad, I’ve never been so sick. Of course, that was the night my daughter decided she wanted to have a 10 pm meltdown while my husband was at the store getting me something to try and make me feel better and prevent me from becoming dehydrated. I had no patience, and I had no energy and I wanted to cry. I really, really wanted to cry. As I lay there on the floor feeling like death, I imagined having the strength and energy to spank her. And then I vomited everywhere and forgot all about it.

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