Disciplining your Children

Why you child rack a disciprine?

I’m getting to the stage where I’m thinking about possibly maybe having the inclination towards perhaps entertaining an idea of considering having kids, but the one thing that freaks me out about having children (besides the no sleep and changing nappies, of course) is the discipline issue.

I’m worried because disciplining children doesn’t seem to be as easy as it used to be. It used to be that if your kid even so much as looked at you funny and he was on his way to the small town of Assbeaton, population 1. It really was a golden age of corporal punishment and we thought it would never end. We thought as kids ourselves that although we might not be able to in act revenge against our parents and teachers that at least we would get even on the backsides of the next generation. I know what you’re thinking “dream parent”, right?

But now there’s no corporal punishment in schools and it’s frowned upon in most homes. I don’t see what’s so bad about it. It very quickly taught me to be scared of those bigger than me and that I could physically dominate anyone weaker than me that didn’t listen to me. The system works!

I used to get hidings all the way till I was about 13 when I made the mistake of laughing while my mother tried to give me a hiding. “Ooh nooo the pain! Oooooh nooooooo the agony!” That’s when we stopped getting hidings and the psychological punishment began removing privileges like a week of no Television or a week without being allowed outside or a week without food or water.

Now you have to negotiate with your kids and try to make them understand why they are being punished and I honestly cannot believe some of the disciplinary methods I hear about these days.

Like freaking hippy / free spirits that say “We don’t like using the word NO so we don’t”. So when little Jimmy is drawing on the walls we know he’s just trying to express himself and we shouldn’t stop him from doing that.”

What about when you need to discipline him?

“We like to let him decide on his own punishment that way he will choose a punishment that fits the crime”

For example?

“Well a few weeks ago we found him ripping up the plants in our marijua…I mean herb garden and so we asked him to punish himself” He had such bad munchies that he decided his punishment was to eat as much chocolate as he could.

Really? And that’s “punishment”?

“He was so sick the entire night. He was puking all over the house and I’m sure as he saw his mom and I on our hands and knees cleaning up all his chocolatey vomit he felt really bad. Which is why last week when he was ripping up the marijua… um Basil leaves again he didn’t eat as much chocolate as last time.”

I also don’t understand people that use the “naughty stool/time out/send you to your room” method

“Whenever little Billy misbehaves we just send him to his room because that sort of simulates what it’s like in the real world when criminals are sent to prison.”

Rrrrrrrright. Because in prison every cell has a Playstation 3, stacks of toys and a Spiderman bed spread.

Sorry but little Billy’s room is nothing like prison. First of all there’s no toilet in the corner of his room, there aren’t bars on the windows and in prison they don’t call you out of your cell after 30mins for pizza to chat about what you did.

If you want him to really feel what it’s like to be in prison, the least you could do would to get him a roommate called “Bubba” or “Stabby”.

Teach him to join a gang, carve a shank out of a toothbrush and smuggle cigarettes in his ass.

Maybe if that TV series “Prison Break” is anything to guy by you should tattoo the blueprints of the prison on his back.

But if you really want your child to know what it’s like in a South African prison and how to survive teach him to fake being sick

Magazine Cover Spreads 101

Even in another language the same rules apply

Last week as I was trying to kill time at the mall (whilst trying to avoid mauling and killing irritating children abandoned by their parents without any direction save for perhaps the direct instruction to annoy me to death – perhaps a subject for another blog), I decided to browse the local magazine stockist (read “loiter”).

As I strolled down the magazine aisles of the local stationer I couldn’t help notice how many freakin’ magazines there are in circulation. Whoever said print is a dead medium has obviously not been paying attention to magazines, because there were thousands covering every fetish, interest or fad around, from the bizarre like extreme sports and facial tattoos to everyday activities like sport, cooking and how to build your own sex-swing (what?!)

Although I can’t imagine why one would want a subscription to some of these magazines. At what point do you realise that you don’t need to follow every episode of Panda Enthusiast Weekly, when do you realise the irony of buying “Save the trees Magazine” and if you’ve signed up for a 12month subscription of “Your Pregnancy” magazine, you’re obviously doing something wrong.

As I browsed (loitered) through the magazine aisles it became quite apparent (disturbing even) that all the cover stories of all the magazines were pretty much exactly the same. Take for example a stereotypical Men’s magazine like “GQ” or “Men’s health”. There will always be a half naked guy (normally wading out of the water for some reason) and the articles will always be something like “X ways to bigger Y” (where X is a random number and Y is a random body part) or “The latest gadgets” and finally there will always be an article on “X ways to get more/better/weirder sex” (where X is a ridiculously high number – but where most of the points are duplicates).

Now women’s magazines are no different. There will normally be a slightly more clothed woman on the front but the articles will usually just be worded slightly differently. Instead of “X ways to bigger Y” body part, it’s usually X ways to shrink Y body part. Instead of the “latest gadgets” it’s the “latest fashions” and instead of the “more sex” article it’ll usually say “love” or “romance” (but will usually still say “sex”).

What was quite disturbing was the fact that even magazines like Farmer’s weekly had the same template –a half naked farmer or fully naked sheep with articles like “X amount of ways for bigger sheep”, “the latest gadgets and fashion for sheep” and how to get more/better/weirder sex or romance (with sheep).

Subscription anyone?

Bad music + Bad Parents = Bad life choices

"I'll take you to the candy shop..."

Look I love skanks as much as the next guy as I’ve mentioned before every guy needs a practice girl, but there has been a definite increase in the skank population over the past few years and while I’d love to place the blame squarely on the Kardashians and Paris Hilton, some of the blame has to go towards the music industry.

The South African government is trying its damndest to prevent a local porn channel airing, but have they seen what is on MTV and Channel O these days?

I first realised music videos had maybe become a little too sexy when the video “Britney Spears – I’m a slave for you” first released. It’s not really known as being the most provocative or raunchy video, but the one thing I will always remember it for is the architectural masterpiece known to me as the “sex wall”.

In its basic form the “sex wall” is a writhing mass of half naked sweaty bodies panting, lurching and lunging to the beat. It didn’t seem to shock me at first; in fact I was completely oblivious to it. Only after my elderly grandmother walked in, looked at the TV, immediately walked out and was found 10 minutes later seated in the kitchen simply staring catatonically out the window, that I realised that I had been desensitised to the kind of raunchy sex that would warp the sensibilities of someone a few generations older than me.

Perhaps that is why parents these days don’t even seem to realise what effect this “music” is having on their kids. They still proudly call their kids into the living room to sing to guests (an embarrassment I recall all too often from my childhood), but instead of some musical number from Annie or the Sound of Music it’s whatever sexcapading young tart is rocking the charts at the time.

There is something deeply disturbing about having someone’s 6 year old daughter sing you “her favourite song” only to have her grind up on your leg singing “I’m wanting you to push up on my buttons. Saying what you gone do to me, but ain’t seen nothing.” (I’m not even talking about their poor grammar). The parents will often simply say that “she’s too young to know what she’s singing” (at which point I can’t help, but picture them on a future episode of “16 and pregnant”).

Unless these parents are so stupid that they also don’t realise these lyrics are overtly sexual. (The kind of people who think 50 cent was actually singing about a candy shop and really did want you to “lick the lolly pop” or that Christina Aguilera was really singing about a genie in a bottle that you had to “rub the right way”)

As creepy as it is to hear little girls singing along, sometimes it’s even worse hearing old woman singing along. There is no more powerful antiaphrodisiac than hearing an elderly woman sing along to “don’t ya wish your girlfriend was raw like me?” I can only hope that they also don’t realise what the lyrics are…

Some of my recent favourite sing along lyrics for kids and the elderly alike include…

1) 50 cent – Candy Shop “Got the magic stick, I’m the love doctor”

2) Christina Aguilera – Woo hoo “You know you really wanna wanna taste my woohoo, you know you want to get a peak”

3) Akon – Sexy Bitch “I’m trying to find the words to describe this girl without being disrespectful Damn you’s a sexy bitch”

4) Kelis – Milkshake “My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard”

5) Rihanna – Rude Boy “Come here rude boy, boy can you get it up? Come here rude boy, boy, is you big enough?”

Parents! Rise Up and Retaliate!

There will always be a generation gap. It may be shrinking or growing depending on who you ask, but as long as parents are waiting for their twenties or thirties to have children there will always be a gap in understanding between generations. At this juncture I must give my kudos to all the teenage mom’s who are trying their best to shrink this gap. I salute you skanks!

With this generation gap comes not only a gap in age and understanding but what each generation relates to and as a result what they perceive as “cool”. All the fads, the bands, the movies and the catchphrases, the fashion, the technologies, the style icons and sex symbols, these all change with each subsequent generation and thankfully so. I don’t need my kids one day perving over a now 60 year old Pamela Anderson.

As part of this change in perspective often comes an inability to relate to our parents and what they thought was “cool” and no matter how hard they try our parents will never ever really “get it” when it comes to our tastes. All too often we hear the teen angst ridden cry of “MOM! You’re embarrassing me in front of my friends!” Usually after either trying to show affection; trying to join in on a teenage conversation about popular media or trying to explain why they’re still “cool”. Probably the worst, “uncoolest” thing you could ever do is try convince a child that you are cool – FYI.

I’m no parent and been embarrassed many times by my parents’ sincere attempts to get involved, but I must say that its time parents fought back. If they kept getting told that they are so embarrassing, its time they shared the favour with their insolent and unappreciative brats, perhaps in a way similar to the following:

“Oh I embarrass you do I? You know who should be embarrassed? Me! You used to piss yourself in public and I had to clean up after you. Remember when you threw up in the shopping mall when you were 5? You don’t think that was embarrassing? When you were born your penis was so small the doctor thought you were a girl. Then for years when we went to movies your choice of movie sucked! Ice Age? Toy Story? Yawn! And then to embarrass me further you started crying in Shrek because it was “too scary”.

Now you’re 14 and you’re still embarrassing. Your acne, your voice breaking and you still pee the bed. I get called in to the principal’s office because you’re failing your tests – then he shouts at me because you’re so stupid. You’re only 12? How can you fail English? You speak it every day and the books they require you to read don’t have words longer than 7 letters in them. And you think my music embarrasses you? You listen to Justin Bieber and the Jonas Brothers squeaking about true love at 16.
You’re embarrassing!”

Of course this may horribly scar your child psychologically and for the rest of their lives, so you would never do so because you love them so much (and psychologists are expensive) but it’s fun to think about doing it every once in a while.

Kids LOVE to run

Whoever said kids these days don’t enjoy spending time outside is a liar… a dirty, agoraphobic liar, or the Marketing Director of Sony Playstation!

Kids love to run! They LOVE it. I didn’t notice it till recently. I have a few older married friends who have children and some younger sluttier unmarried friends who have even more children and I often see them just go to open fields, parks or the beach and just unleash these little running machines.

The car literally pulls up, the doors open and tiny little humans come pouring out leaving a trail of plastic toys in their wake.

And they just keep running and running and running. I thought there must be some sort of motivation so I asked one little guy who was chasing after the other kids why he was running after them…turns out that little guy was actually a midget paedophile and was arrested soon after, but this other kid I asked why he was running, told me that “whoever comes last is a Poo Face”

I thought to myself “wow that’s pretty harsh! You better start training then kid, what kind of diet are you on? High protein shakes? Supplements?” He then held out a hand of melted smarties covered in grass and what I can only hope wasn’t dog turd.

I had to finish my conversation soon after that for risk of this young child getting a face full of shit, but also the boy’s parents were starting to stare at me…people were a bit edgy after the midget paedophile scare.

But it made me think about why kids LOVE running and why adults HATE running!

Whenever I’m driving and I see runners going past… I realise I have a really slow car. But I also notice that there are several types of runners and none of them appear to be having any fun. One type is “over-weight-time-to-turn-my-life-around fatty” who is sweating, puffing and panting and that’s just him tying his shoelaces.

Then there is super hot, ultra mega babe in the skin tight lycra bouncing up and down like a Baywatch slomo and we all know she doesn’t need to be running since she gyms 3 times a day anyway. I think she may be paid by tow truck companies to cause traffic accidents.

Then there is uber Gadget- Cyborg Terminator wannabe guy, who has more gadgets than you’d find in porn star’s bedside cabinet. His watch tells him how fast he’s going, how many calories he’s burning per second and his exact position on the planet using the Global Positioning Satellite System, (in case he’s a complete idiot). Some of the newer models even tell the time. THE FUTURE IS HERE!

But none of them look like they’re having any fun, not like kids. And that’s when I realised it; we should re-introduce games like “stuck in the mud” into modern society or my personal favourite…”kissing catches”!

Can you imagine stuck in the mud? It would be a great if you’re having a date and it’s not going so well and she wants to leave you can always go: “TAG! You’re stuck in the Mud!”

You will see people like cyborg wanna be douche bag standing in the middle of the road screaming: “quick crawl under my legs!” … let’s see your fancy watch get you out of that!

And my favourite…Kissing Catches. Although there would be some negatives, I guess. Firstly you’d have everyone running after ultra hot mega babe and you’d have gangs of ugly girls running around hoping to get caught or chasing after guys. I suppose it would be no different to going for a run in a dodgy neighbourhood and I suppose all the guys would just be chasing after super hot ultra mega babe… so I guess nothing would really have changed.

What do I care anyway, it’s not like I’ll ever go for a run.