Club Meeting 308 - Parental Discipline

“If soldiers are punished before they have grown attached to you, they will not prove submissive; and, unless submissive, then will be practically useless. If, when the soldiers have become attached to you, punishments are not enforced, they will still be useless.” ― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Hello all.  Welcome back to The Disciplinary Couples Club.  Our weekly gathering of men and women who are in, or interested in being in, Domestic Discipline relationships, mainly of the Female/male variety.  I hope you had a good week.

Mine was one in which everything at work seemed to go from bad to work, and some of it because of very undisciplined behavior.  And, for once, not just mine.  I had a new colleague pushing buttons in some major ways, and he finally pushed the wrong one and I went off.  I reported last year about an incident in which I went off on someone and Anne made me apologize to them, and how humbling that was.  This time the situation is different, in that last time I really did feel like I jumped to a conclusion that was wrong even if it was perfectly consistent with the kind of dick-ish behavior this person displayed on a regular basis. Even if it was humbling to do, I felt like my behavior really called for it precisely because my reaction to him was factually wrong.  This time, there really isn’t any doubt this guy was crossing lines and pushing buttons.  The only real issue is whether my reaction was consistent with what I expect from myself and, hence, whether some humbling is called for even if I wasn’t actually in the wrong this time.  I guess another way of putting it is you can react in a way that is perfectly consistent with reality and that the recipient 100% deserves, yet it still may not be consistent with the kind of behavior you want to embody.  I need to think about this more, because right now I’m still pretty pissed off at this guy and enjoying wallowing in my righteous indignation and feeling kind of good about taking him down a peg.  But, for now, on to other things.

In one of the final comments on last week’s topic, “A husband who knows” suggested the following:  “Possible topic: Compare the discipline you got from your parents with the discipline you get from your wife (or give to your husband). How are they alike and different? Which has been more effective? Which do you prefer?” This touches a bit on a post I did back in February about the maternal element in discipline, and while I generally try to avoid doing the same topic twice in one year, this one is broader and gives people more room to roam.  Also, I’ve honestly been wanting to explore the issues around maternal and parental discipline more, because I’ve been getting more comfortable with admitting to myself that, while many here seem to have come to adult discipline via an early and probably innate fascination with spanking, my own needs in this area seem more closely tied to discipline or lack thereof as a teenager that now compels me to want discipline with a particularly “parental” element.

But, before we get to that, a hopefully interesting aside.  In looking for quotes to put at the top of this post, I thought that a good place to start for quotes related to parental discipline might be to run a Google search for quotes related to the biblical injunction of “spare the rod and spoil the child.”  What I found was kind of fascinating given the context of this blog and today's topic because, as it turns out that quote actually is not from the Bible at all and, in fact, is about adult spanking!  For the whole back story, check out this article: http://www.thisdayinquotes.com/2010/11/spare-rod-and-spoil-child-is-not-in.html.  Note: The quote I ended up using has nothing to do with parental discipline, but I found it while doing the search for quotes for today's topic and it seemed to me to be a very insightful statement on the interplay between love and authority.

Now, after that little diversion, I’ll throw out my own answer to “A husband who knows” topic, hopefully without retreading too much on February’s post. 

For someone who now spends hours a week writing or reading about adult discipline, being disciplined plays a very minor role in my memories of my childhood and teen-age years.  Paradoxically, I’ve come to believe that is why it became such an obsession for me after I discovered Domestic Discipline via The Disciplinary Wives Club website.  In terms of spankings, I honestly don’t have a clear memory of a single one I received from my mother, though I assume she must have given me a few because it was such a commonplace thing where I was growing up that it would have been astonishing for any kid to not get spanked by both parents fairly regularly. 

I think the reasons I don’t recall any by my mother is because they simply weren’t that eventful and probably happened when I was young enough that I just don’t remember them.   

Interestingly, I do remember at least one spanking she gave one of my sisters.  In fact, it had some corollaries to the drawing the left, except what I recall is my sister being draped over the end of the bed, not on all fours on top of it.  What I don't recall is exactly how I came to have this memory. The most likely explanation is that I opened the bedroom door a crack and looked in as it was happening.  Probably should have earned one myself for that behavior.

I'm also pretty certain that was not the only time my sister got spanked.  She was kind of a bully as a teen and got in lots of trouble at school and, like a lot of families at that time and in that place, the rule was "get spanked at school, get a second and harder one at home that night."

I do recall some threatened and at least one actual spanking from my father.  I recall the threatened spanking situation fairly vividly, and it involved one of those very direct instructions that if I kept doing something I was going to get spanked.  What I don’t recall is whether I actually did keep doing what I was doing and did actually get spanked.  I even more vividly recall one actual spanking, because it would have been pretty hard to forget as it was a very sound spanking with a belt.

But, I think it is not so much spanking in particular as discipline in general where my parent’s approach was both atypical for the time and place but also very distinct from what I need now and what my wife are increasingly experimenting with her trying to provide.  My mother was very strong-willed in some ways, but it was expressed very erratically.  She could go from June Cleaver to Mommy Dearest in a heartbeat.  She seldom made or enforced rules but, at the same time, could be very pushy and aggressive.  But, it was totally inconsistent and never really connected to setting a rule precluding any particular bad behavior and then imposing a consequence for that behavior. 

My father’s approach to bad behavior was even more forgiving.  He had been a wild man in his youth and, frankly, well past the age where most men start growing up.  If I had to compare him to a literary character, the closest I can come is probably Hud in the Larry McMurtry novel “Horseman Pass By,” which was made into a movie starring Paul Newman as the erratic western anti-hero Hud. He was sort of a force of nature, but it wasn’t just by temperament; it was his overarching philosophy and encompasses his philosophy on parenting.  He told me more than once in high school, “I’m not going to lay down a bunch of rules unless and until you screw up in some way that shows me you need them.”  Now, that may sound like a teenage boy’s wet dream, but the problem was I did, in fact, screw up a lot at least by normal standards.  I was just smart and lucky enough to get myself out of it most of the time.  So, there was almost nothing like accountability-based or rule-driven discipline for me growing up:

I wasn’t really aware of how stressful that was at the time, but I think by the time I got out of college I felt like I had the world on my shoulders, because when there are no boundaries being imposed on you, everything you do and all the associated consequences are fully on you, too.  By the time I got out of grad school, I felt an incredible amount of stress and anxiety, even if I didn’t really show it.  So, I think I was primed and ready when I stumbled on the Disciplinary Wives Club in my late 30s.  The descriptions of men having boundaries imposed upon them by strong-willed wives just really got to me deep down inside.  But, I don’t think I consciously associated it with anything maternal.  I really needed someone to set rules and enforce them consistently, but anyone would do if they had sufficient presence and authority to make me feel like I am not the one in command and that punishment is inevitable and resistance futile.  While the "strict mom" archetype serves that role, so could an aunt, teacher, school principal, or any other authoritarian whose power or position was sufficient to make me submit.

So, to answer “A husband who knows” first question, the differences between the discipline received from my parents and the discipline from my wife are like night and day.  My parents very seldom spanked and, at least once I got old enough to remember such things, arguably never really disciplined, at least if we associate discipline with, to use Anton’s word, “training.”  “Effectiveness” follows that same answer – my parents didn’t discipline at all, so anything my wife does is likely to be more effective.

I think the more interesting part of the topic for me is the interplay between what I didn’t get back then and what I think I need now. For a long time, I didn’t bring this up at all with Anne, or even really to myself, though I think I suspected on some level that my need for adult discipline is rooted in a need for what I will call, for lack of a better word, “re-parenting.” 

Anne has talked in positive terms about using DD to reduce me to a "teen-age boy who needs a spanking from his mom."  She also has compared me to a teenager who mischievously pushes buttons just to do it, then is surprised when she actually does something about it.  It's that roller-coaster ride that is my DD obsession—wanting boundaries when I don’t perceive them and then getting resentful when she suddenly imposes one.  What I am starting to appreciate is it may very well have been my own mother's erratic approach to parenting, and my father’s totally passive approach, that put me on that roller-coaster, wanting discipline when it is absent but resenting it once it is imposed. And, what I seem to both crave and resist the most is consistent, no nonsense rule setting and direction.  In fact, at the risk of saying anything negative, I think the one "deficiency" in our DD lifestyle has always been lack of consistency, and I think I crave it (and resist it) precisely because my mother was so inconsistent in her moods and parenting approach.

As discussed last year, I've also noticed that part of the attraction I have to spanking drawings that include a maternal vibe is the "getting down to business" demeanor and the sense of inevitability it conveys, and the domestic setting definitely adds to the ambiance.   

Yet, I have shied away from expressing a lot of this on the blog, because I do want it to be a positive resource that encourages newbies to try Domestic Discipline, but I also realize that the “I’m his wife, not his mother” attitude may be pretty prevalent with wives who are unexpectedly confronted with a husband’s need for discipline. 

So, thanks to a “Husband who knows” for this week’s topic.  I look forward to all your input on this.

By the way, I came across this demotivational poster a few weeks ago and about fell out of my chair laughing.  When it comes to my anti-authoritarian streak -- this is me.  Right here.