Spare the rod?

The ribbons of irony that come with playing daddy to the tilt twist with irony.

I walk into work this morning with a younger brother who's around my age, but just seriously dating a woman with a grade-school-age daughter. He chides me about my only child winding up spoiled, because there will be no siblings. I pass him _ who has no clue _ off with platitudes dealing with college financing and age and energy and extra-curricular obligations.

I don't think he heard me.

Later, I meld with Dan-O accidently on a trudge down the Fairlie alley to the Korean store that sells good sunflower seeds in salted shells. On the way back, I related how the II had earned a few firm love taps on the bottom the previous night for acting out egregiously at a fairly nice restaurant.

We were there with the parents of his main pre-K squeeze and the two of them had shown out all through dinner, dessert and the long-ass good-byes outside. Mommy made me out to be the villain for swatting him in public. (Public being a make-believe "green" community of overpriced custom dwellings with chi-chi services and eateries sprinkled among them.)

Anyway: I read today that the Indiana State Supreme court ruled today that "corporate punishment" was not punishable by law. The ruling came down after a woman petititoned for the right to beat her son with belts and extension cords to punish him for stealing her clothes.

I risked getting whupped while growing up in the Hoosier state for infractions no worse than setting foot in my mama's pristine living room. I endured "corporal punishment" from the toddler stage through 12th grade, in many and bizarre shapes and forms. I got caught and suffered the consequences. In the long run, all those paddlings and spankings, I think, helped more than hindered my upbringing.

I wish all those I grew up with who wound up in jail or leading shiftless lives had been touched as many times by the cruel hand of love as I was.

It's almost comical to me that the sole dissenting voice in the 4-1 vote to allow whuppings in the Indy judiciary hails from my hometown, which has grown exponentially more violent since I left right after high school. In his opinion, an allowance for parents to whup their kids' asses undermines efforts to spot and prevent abuse.

There may be grains of truth in that argument.

But I remain convinced that a boy's better off learning that a S.W.A.T. operation could confront him at any given time.