What Boys Do When They Grow Up

So perhaps you are wondering…what has become of your sons now that they are grown men? Let me think how to answer that. Hmmm…

When they were growing up, they were feisty, pugilistic at times, competitive, unpredictable, spontaneous, creative, and fun.

Now they are grown men and they are…feisty, less pugilistic, competitive, unpredictable, spontaneous, creative, and fun!

Today I’m going to talk about the oldest one. First, I’ll attempt to describe what he does for work. When people ask me, he told me to say he has a company that offers the ultimate supercar driving experience in a high performance vehicle on a privately owned, state-of-the-art track. This thrill-of-a-lifetime driving opportunity is available to individuals as well as for corporate events.

I think my description of his work is more realistic: he has a company that provides absurdly expensive super cars for thrill seekers to drive at terrifying speeds on a twisted road. And since Burt is the driving instructor, he gets to ride with the inexperienced drivers. Comforting thought.

Let me describe a video he has posted on his Facebook page. (Hint to mothers: unless you’re prepared to handle the disclosures you’re about to read, don’t ever stalk your child on FB!)

The video shows a young woman in the car with the driver. (He isn’t seen, but now you know who it is.) She has on a crash helmet—that fact alone should tell us something—and her head is plastered again the seat from the impact of the g-forces, her long blond hair billowing in the breeze windstorm, hands splayed dramatically across her heart. Her lines are easy to remember: “Oh my gah! Oh my gah! Oh my gah! This is awesome, this is awesome, this is awesome! OK, OK, OK, I don’t want to die! This is awesome, this is awesome, this is awesome…”  You get the picture.

I ignore the window that shows the speedometer of the vehicle my son is driving. I’m sure it’s broken, anyway. No car goes that fast. Right?

I did laugh out loud when the dialogue between them is heard over the roar of the engine and the whine of the car rounding a curve:
She: “So do you drive this car around all the time?”
Burt: “No. It’s my first time!”

Maybe his penchant for fast, high-performance cars is a backlash for our making him drive a super conservative, slow-moving, well-used black Camry when he was in high school. That’s when I learned it’s important to let our child have a little bit of input into what he drove, especially when he already had to suffer the indignity of hauling his four little brothers to school and seeing the little ones safely off to the elementary building.  I still wonder how they all fit into that car. Burt said one time that they looked like clowns at the circus when the impossible number of clowns jump out of a Volkswagen. That word picture did give me a little perspective on things.

Burt has come a long way since those days. He is a most delightful son (as they all are), and a man of character and integrity. However…there are days that I have flashbacks to his boyhood and I wonder, not how he will turn out when he grows up, but rather, will he grow up? The following video explains.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJ8JozVEhps&feature=youtube

That’s my boy.

P.S. He’s the same one I wrote about in the post below. :)

The Age for Spanking

In talking to young moms, I continuously find the question coming up concerning the age at which a child should be spanked. How young? How old?  I’ll pass along two experiences I had as a mom struggling to maintain discipline in our household of boys. This is taken directly from one of the many journals I kept as the boys were growing up.

June 23, 1983

Dear Journal,

Today I had a showdown with our 13-year-old. It must be boredom from school being out, but seems the boys have annoyed one another worse than ever! The main one is the oldest, who insists on harassing the younger brothers. Finally today I couldn’t stand it another minute. I waited until Burt Sr. came home for lunch, not because I wanted him to punish him, but I wanted our son to know his dad was backing me up, and also because I was so exasperated I thought I might hurt him! (Although I wasn’t sure I could; he’s 6’ tall and outweighs me!)

Anyway, when Burt Sr. came in, I asked him to follow me to the bedroom where I told our son to wait. I made our big boy pull down his outside pants, lean over the bed, and I spanked him as hard as I could on his bottom. It has been ten years or so since I actually used corporal punishment with him, but this time his behavior was so juvenile, it was appropriate.

The spanking our 13-year-old got worked. A few weeks later I was leaving his room and I saw a note he had posted on his message board. It said: Remember: Be nice to brothers.  (Note: it was his last spanking.)

As with everything, I learned on the first child. It’s a miracle he turned out well. It was liberating to discover I could expect obedience from even a young toddler. One day as I attempted to change one of our squirmy little boys, he repeatedly flipped over and crawled away with amazing speed. I found myself on the floor crawling after him, grabbing his foot and dragging him back, only to have the process repeated. After several attempts, I realized how ridiculous it was for me, a grownup woman, to be on my hands and knees, trying to catch a stubborn little boy. Several good pops on his bare bottom let him know he had to lie still for a diaper change.

The secret to any successful discipline is to make sure the child knows who’s in charge…and it’s not him.