The first of my mom's boyfriends that I can cleanly remember, is Bill. Now, Bill was a nice guy, he was. He stressed about making sure I was disciplined and raised well enough... because that's what my mom was stressed about. Every day was the same routine for me: Wake up, go to school, get picked up by Bill, do homework, eat, then stay in my room the entire night unless I had friends over.
If I went out of order in any way, Bill would hit me. My only problem was that, I went out of this order A LOT. The only other problem, was that it gradually got worse over time.
When he first moved in with my mom and I, he was always really playful. When my brothers and sisters were over, he'd chase us around the house, tickle us, make dinner for us, take us to the park to run around, pretty much anything we wanted to do that was fun, he would let us do. But strangely enough, he eventually felt the need to start making up rules for the house.
- No jumping on the furniture.
- No sitting on the arms of the couches.
- No friends over passed 6 o' clock.
- No cartoons passed 7 o' clock.
- No missing school for any reason.
- No loud noises.
- No cussing.
- Fork in your right hand and knife in your left when you eat.
- No soda for kids.
- No talking back.
- Brush your teeth three times a day, every day.
If I remember correctly, that is just a small list of all the rules he personally enforced. Which, the rules themselves weren't bad! They weren't bad at all. As a matter of fact, I'll probably enforce a couple of those guidelines to my own kids one day. But the issue was that my mom didn't know about these rules, let alone how he made sure I followed them.
The punishments evolved through out the time he was living here. First there was time out. Then he would spank me or swat my butt. Soon after, I started getting the belt to the butt. Then I got the belt to the body. He eventually realized that god gave him hands, so he started back handing me. Finally, it was the belt buckle I was taking to the body when I didn't follow the rules, and that doesn't include how long I got grounded for.
Now don't get me wrong here. I'm not trying to receive pity or get some extra, golden attention by saying what happened. And I'm sure as hell not over exaggerating. I don't want anyone who might be reading this to think that my entire life is shit because of what he did to me, because it's not. I have a wonderful life. As a matter of fact, I THANK Bill for doing what he did to me. I'm thankful that I can look back on what happened between me and him.
At this point, you're probably saying, "What the fuck?! WHY?!"
It's because I know that I'm a better person now because of it. Not because I learned a sense of authority or discipline behind what he did, but because I now know what kind of man I DON'T want to be one day. I now know that when I do have kids of my own, I will never allow them to experience the things I had to experience. Because of Bill, I realize that I wouldn't ever want someone to go through what I had to go through. Nobody deserves to be treated the way I was so many years ago. And it took me walking through that fire to see how hot it really burned. I'm just glad that I can now look back at my past and laugh at how silly of a situation I was in when I was younger. I don't laugh because it was funny, but I laugh because I know I've gotten over it. I laugh because I forgive him.
There is nothing wrong with disciplining your children. Nothing at all. Kids need to be punished in order to learn a sense of right and wrong. To learn a sense of authority and respect for others. Otherwise, they never learn those things on their own when they get older. But there is a very vivid line between raising your child and making your child feel less than human. I really do hope that eventually, people realize this and that society finds different creative ways to teach their children the right lessons in life. Because a spanking is a spanking. But hitting a child is a little more than unnecessary.
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