Raising children

Kids don’t respond to discipline the way we, as parents, wish they would.

Time was, your parents laid down the law, and you took it with as big a grain of salt as you could swallow, and obeyed the parental edict.

Being a hybrid of Neil Young’s “Southern Man”, and Lynrd Skynrd’s “Simple Man”, I longed for a boy child in the days of my parenthood. We’d hunt, fish, and work on old cars. The tradition would be fulfilled.

Instead, I got girls. Two gorgeous gals, who have their Ma’s looks and my legs. That’s a good combination; much better than my looks and their Ma’s legs. We never got to the hunting, fishing, and old cars stuff, but in hindsight, it doesn’t matter. My kids are precious and unique, and I’ll kill for them in a New York minute if it’s called for.

I don’t have to defend my girls, because they are more ferocious than I can hope to be. They are perfect examples of why the Injuns left the torture of captives to the women.

Some of my faithful readers have raised kidlets on their own. We read Dr. Spock and the other “experts”, but it eventually comes down to making it up as we go along. You try and raise a child with a sense of what’s right, and hope that you were correct in assigning that value judgment.

Here’s a cautionary tale for you parents still rearing them young pups:

Laura is the older. She was 16 at the time this took place in the ‘90s. She was turning into quite the “mall rat”, had just gotten her own car on the matching funds deal, and was looking to explore her newfound maturity.

So, on a weeknight, she announces that she’s going “to the mall”; ostensibly to take in a movie. Homework is done; all is in order… no reason for the parental units to raise objections.

Mrs. Trot and I both nodded assent, but a minute after Laura left the house, my scalp began to crawl. Something wasn’t right. I called for Mrs. Trot’s car keys; my old Corvette was too easily spotted in traffic.

I zoomed off after my errant child. I caught her on the entrance ramp to T--- L--- mall. She pulled in, found a parking place, and approached the entrance to the mall. She did not actually venture inside. Instead, a car pulled up, and she hopped in.

I followed this car to a house that appeared bereft of adults. I am not so old and burned-out that I can’t recognize a party in progress, nor know what kids that age get up to. Our children continually fail to realize that we have been there before them, and have done what they think is breaking new ground.

Laura was drinking a beer when she went into that house. Whatever went on inside, I don’t want to go there. I went home and waited.

Along about midnight, Laura turned up. Like Archie Bunker, I was sitting my Laz-Y-Boy chair, waiting.

“How was the movie?”

“Good.”

"And it ended at…?"

Caught in a lie, we blush now.

“It was cool.”

“Who were them kids you went off to _____Something Blvd. with?”

Here come the waterworks; daddy, you ain’t supposed to know this. Daddy knows everything. I am two steps ahead of my children, no matter what.

I grounded Laura. Too big to spank, I told her that she would not be going out for fun and games at the local high school for the next few nights. No Corvette, no rented limo for prom night. And that was the big forthcoming date.

My daughter’s response was to go into her mother’s purse and locate a .380 pistol. I gave her ma the firearm, and taught her how to use it, so that the women in my life will be safe.

When they were both of an age to understand what I was doing, I laid my firearms collection out on the carpet of the family room, invited the girls in, and asked if they had any questions about daddy’s toys. The idea was to pre-empt questions and curiosity about firearms. I offered then and there to teach my daughters to shoot. Laura refused; Lindsey can match me every day on the range with a .40 handgun.

I grounded Laura for lying to me. No ‘Vette, no prom, no date. She ran into the bedroom, and located her ma’s pistol in her purse. My baby daughter rushed into the family room, and sought frantically to work the safety catch off the pistol. I am no fool, and was rushing out the door when my baby girl appeared with a firearm. I have a natural aversion to firearms, even when wielded by my children.

This was before I got hurt. I still had full use of my legs. It was 200 yards to the horse pasture in back of my house, and a 3-strand barbed wire fence to get into that pasture. I was fast back then; I covered the distance in record time.

Laura fired four or five times at me. Her mother disarmed her, and asked “What the hell are you doing?” I cleared the pasture fence by several feet, and was running for the treeline. There was a five-acre horse pasture out back, and I cleared that fence in a single leap. Bullets being ignited somewhere behind you can have this effect.

Younger daughter Lindsey can outmatch me with a handgun. That kid’s a natural; I need a lot of range time to get into the X-ring with such fluid motion.

On this particularly strange evening, Laura, the one who didn’t care for firearms, went into her mama’s purse and fetched out that .380 semi-automatic pistol. I’m sure the gun-control advocates can find an argument in here that possession of firearms in the household can lead to crimes of passion.

Hey, I’m proud of my kid, that she had the passion to draw down on me. I outran her fumbling with the safety catch, and her mama disarmed her and called her attention to the error of her ways before she shot her old man. No one got hurt, and she was properly remorseful in the aftermath.

Laura is grown and married today. Her husband is also a fair hand with large-caliber handguns; such proficiency is a prerequisite for marrying my daughters.