It's no secret that spanking is still a pretty hot-button issue. Once considered commonplace, the American Academy of Pediatrics now condemns it, instead urging parents to use "healthy forms of discipline, such as positive reinforcement of appropriate behaviors, limit setting, redirecting, and setting future expectations." The problem for one mom is that her father usually watches her two sons, and during a particularly bad meltdown, he gave her 5-year-old a smack on the behind. Now, her husband is livid and says that her father isn't allowed anywhere near their kids. But the mom? She's not so sure where she stands.
The mom usually lets her dad watch her two sons a couple days a week, while she and her husband are at work.
As she wrote in a frustrated letter to Slate's "Care and Feeding" advice column, the arrangement only recently came to a screeching halt after her son reported that his grandpa "hit him on the bottom."
"My son can be difficult," the mom admitted in her letter. "He does not like rules, hates to be told no, and can terrorize his brother. He is also prone to hitting us (parents and grandparents) when he doesn’t get his way."
Both parents are against spanking, but the mom does admit that she was spanked as a child and "doesn't feel like I was abused."
Still, she confronted her dad about what happened, and he was honest that he did give the boy "a little spank."
"He feels horrible about it and said it will never happen again," she continued, adding that she's okay with it. "I know my son can be difficult to control, and I’ve been tempted to spank him myself."
Her husband, on the other hand, FLIPPED.
"He says my parents should be happy he didn’t call the police and refuses to let them watch the kids," she wrote. "This has torn my family apart. My parents are upset and miss my kids, the kids miss their grandparents, and we have to pay for extra day care and are struggling to find after-school care."
Ultimately, she feels her husband is overreacting, but he thinks she isn't doing enough to keep her kids safe.
"I have suggested that we seek help in dealing with our son’s behavior," she added, "but my husband is against it — he thinks this will cause our son to feel there is something wrong with him."
At the end of the day, she says she loves her parents and "appreciate everything that they have done for us in the past." But still, the question nags her: Is her husband justified, or is he overreacting?
Many people felt that as wrong her father was for spanking, he did sort of have a point.
It seemed clear to them that the letter writer's son needed to be disciplined — ASAP.
"It's interesting to me that the dad is perfectly fine with the son's horrible behavior," one commenter wrote. "Spanking might not be the answer, but he needs some discipline. I have a hard time thinking these two issues aren't related."
"Sounds more like your husband doesn't want to feel like there's 'something wrong' with your son," another person added.
"Letter Writer, you have a much bigger problem with your husband's refusal to deal with your terror of a kid," a third person chimed in. "If his behavior is as bad as you're saying, you need help and your husband has to quit living in fantasy land."
Columnist Rumaan Alam advised that like it or not, her husband has a right to be angry.
Alam explained that both parents had agreed that spanking was a no-no and her father had committed a serious "violation."
"You agree with your husband that your father was in the wrong," he added. "The challenge is how to move beyond this. Your father’s contrition (I’m assuming he actually apologized to your husband, as well as you — if not, he should do so pronto) satisfies you.
"Have you asked your husband whether breaking off relations with your family is the only way he can imagine this being satisfactorily resolved?" he asked her. "If that’s how he feels, then all the mitigating factors — your kid can try even your patience; your father has promised this will never happen again — don’t matter. You may think he’s overreacting (I do, too), but they’re his children."
Alam added that the mom might want to try and get the family together, so that dad can be reminded that grandpa isn't so terrible.
"Because the key, I think, is to focus not on what this break with the family is costing you (extra child care) but what it’s costing your kids," he explained. "They miss their grandparents, and their grandparents miss them. Your father inflicted one kind of pain on your son; your husband’s response to that is inflicting another kind. Maybe if your husband heard it framed thus, he’d be willing to work toward restoring peace in the family."
Here's hoping they work it out — and that things settle down soon, for the sake of the kids.
