Thursday, September 02, 2004
Parentin' -- Erudite Redneck-style
By The Erudite Redneck
Bird heard a few stern words from me this week. She was freaking out over what to do about a class that's harder than she though it'd be at Oklahoma State. I hope she understands why I was stern and that I do know what I'm talking about, but I'm prepared to wait for her experience to catch up with reality.
The tone of the conversation -- OK, the lecture -- reminded me of about the only other time the ol' Erudite Redneck came down hard on Bird, back when she really and truly was Baby Bird.
She was 14, we had just moved to Oklahoma from Texas, and she had racked up a bunch of long-distance phone calls, calling her friends she left behind. Total surprise when I got the phone bill. Pretty serious infraction. Since the phone bill is one of the ones I pay, I got to come up with the punishment.
When it was over, I'm pretty sure she wished she coulda just got a whuppin' -- but that wouldn't've been the Erudite Redneck way.
Here 'tis. Enjoy.
---
To: (Bird)
From: (ER)
Oct. 16, 2000
Pay attention to the boldface words. Number 9 below relates to them.
Here are the details of what you must do as a result of the long-distance calls you made without permission. If this seems harsh, I’m sorry. I consider what you did to be no different than sneaking money out of my billfold — and $75 is a lot of money in any case.
The fact that you made calls repeatedly makes it worse. The fact that I won’t know the true extent of this until next month’s phone bill comes makes it terrible.
In fact, this is the biggest mistake you’ve made since I’ve been around.
Above all else, I want to be able to trust you. I want to be able to believe what you say, and I want to be able to trust your judgment. And right now, I can do none of that.
This has to do with rights and privileges. What follows is meant to be more disciplinary than punitive.
1. You are grounded from AOL, the telephone and TV for at least one month. On Saturday, Nov. 18, the grounding is lifted — if and only if you have performed the "community service," explained below. Until then, you are to stay out of my office. You may speak to relatives on the phone in some other room when they call. You may use the phone to call relatives, with good reason, with permission. You may listen to music, but this privilege may be revoked at my discretion for the remainder of your grounding, depending on your attitude and how you act.
2. To "pay" for the $75 in phone calls, you will perform 12 hours of "community service" around the house. This is the equivalent of being paid $6.25 per hour. Cleaning your room, which you are supposed to do anyway, does not count toward this. You must keep a log of your work. I must initial each entry. You should ask me for work to do; I have a few ideas, but I will not make this easy for you. The work may be inside or outside the house. You will not receive credit for work done without my prior approval.
Special consideration: For the following, you get 15 minutes of credit per day (not counting days when you spend the night elsewhere). You must feed and water the dogs every day, without being asked or reminded to do so; you must clear away the table after meals; you must keep the dishes washed and put away as needed every day (no dishes left in the sink over night, if the dishwasher is full of dirty dishes wash them, if it is full of clean dishes put them away). You must help us keep the living room and kitchen areas uncluttered and clean. In other words, look around: If something needs done, then do it.
3. On Tuesday night you must watch the presidential debate with me and take notes. Then, using your notes and what you remember from the debate, summarize each question and each reply. For each issue, answer the following questions (ask me to explain this better before the debate comes on): A. Why is this an important issue? B. Who (or what kind of people) is affected by this issue? Consider this a "theme." You must use complete sentences and paragraphs.
4. Why was it wrong to make those calls without permission? Think of three reasons it was wrong and write a little about each one. How will you re-earn my trust? (75 words at least).
5. When you do something wrong to someone, do you ever feel remorseful before you get caught? Why or why not? How is the feeling you have before you get caught different from the feeling you have after you get caught? (125 words at least).
6. There are always consequences to doing wrong, even if you don’t get caught. Think of five examples of people doing someone wrong and what the consequences might be even if nobody ever found out. An example: Say I never noticed that your calls are what caused the phone bill to be $75 higher than usual; so you didn’t "get caught." Say I had planned to spend that much on you at the mall, or for a special Christmas present; but because the phone bill was higher than I expected, I was unable to. The consequences, which you may have never known about, were that you didn’t get the stuff I had intended to give you because of your own dishonesty and waste. Another example, and this is a true one: (Relative of mine) stole some magic markers from a store we were in together when we were little. He did not get caught and I did not know about it until we got home. I was completely astounded when he showed them to me. I did not tell on him, but I let him know I thought he had done wrong. He felt remorseful for a long, long time. To this day, I can mention it and it makes him feel a little bad. The consequence: He will always know he did wrong and it will always make him feel bad. Think of your own five examples and write a little about each one. They do not have to be true-to-life. But they have to sound reasonable.
7. You are a good kid, but everyone has room for improvement. Name five areas where you need to improve and write a little about what you plan to do about them.
8. What are you thankful for? List everything you can think of.
9. Above, 14 words are boldfaced. Write out the dictionary explanation of each word. Check the definition that seems to come closest to what I meant. The words you should look up and define are:
Permission.
Judgment.
Right.
Privilege.
Discipline.
Punitive.
Discretion.
Consideration.
Issue.
Trust.
Remorseful.
Consequence.
Astound.
Reasonable.
That's it. I thinked the only one she begged off on was the presidential debate; seems like some school function was going on at the same time. Think I was too harsh? :-)
END
Bird heard a few stern words from me this week. She was freaking out over what to do about a class that's harder than she though it'd be at Oklahoma State. I hope she understands why I was stern and that I do know what I'm talking about, but I'm prepared to wait for her experience to catch up with reality.
The tone of the conversation -- OK, the lecture -- reminded me of about the only other time the ol' Erudite Redneck came down hard on Bird, back when she really and truly was Baby Bird.
She was 14, we had just moved to Oklahoma from Texas, and she had racked up a bunch of long-distance phone calls, calling her friends she left behind. Total surprise when I got the phone bill. Pretty serious infraction. Since the phone bill is one of the ones I pay, I got to come up with the punishment.
When it was over, I'm pretty sure she wished she coulda just got a whuppin' -- but that wouldn't've been the Erudite Redneck way.
Here 'tis. Enjoy.
---
To: (Bird)
From: (ER)
Oct. 16, 2000
Pay attention to the boldface words. Number 9 below relates to them.
Here are the details of what you must do as a result of the long-distance calls you made without permission. If this seems harsh, I’m sorry. I consider what you did to be no different than sneaking money out of my billfold — and $75 is a lot of money in any case.
The fact that you made calls repeatedly makes it worse. The fact that I won’t know the true extent of this until next month’s phone bill comes makes it terrible.
In fact, this is the biggest mistake you’ve made since I’ve been around.
Above all else, I want to be able to trust you. I want to be able to believe what you say, and I want to be able to trust your judgment. And right now, I can do none of that.
This has to do with rights and privileges. What follows is meant to be more disciplinary than punitive.
1. You are grounded from AOL, the telephone and TV for at least one month. On Saturday, Nov. 18, the grounding is lifted — if and only if you have performed the "community service," explained below. Until then, you are to stay out of my office. You may speak to relatives on the phone in some other room when they call. You may use the phone to call relatives, with good reason, with permission. You may listen to music, but this privilege may be revoked at my discretion for the remainder of your grounding, depending on your attitude and how you act.
2. To "pay" for the $75 in phone calls, you will perform 12 hours of "community service" around the house. This is the equivalent of being paid $6.25 per hour. Cleaning your room, which you are supposed to do anyway, does not count toward this. You must keep a log of your work. I must initial each entry. You should ask me for work to do; I have a few ideas, but I will not make this easy for you. The work may be inside or outside the house. You will not receive credit for work done without my prior approval.
Special consideration: For the following, you get 15 minutes of credit per day (not counting days when you spend the night elsewhere). You must feed and water the dogs every day, without being asked or reminded to do so; you must clear away the table after meals; you must keep the dishes washed and put away as needed every day (no dishes left in the sink over night, if the dishwasher is full of dirty dishes wash them, if it is full of clean dishes put them away). You must help us keep the living room and kitchen areas uncluttered and clean. In other words, look around: If something needs done, then do it.
3. On Tuesday night you must watch the presidential debate with me and take notes. Then, using your notes and what you remember from the debate, summarize each question and each reply. For each issue, answer the following questions (ask me to explain this better before the debate comes on): A. Why is this an important issue? B. Who (or what kind of people) is affected by this issue? Consider this a "theme." You must use complete sentences and paragraphs.
4. Why was it wrong to make those calls without permission? Think of three reasons it was wrong and write a little about each one. How will you re-earn my trust? (75 words at least).
5. When you do something wrong to someone, do you ever feel remorseful before you get caught? Why or why not? How is the feeling you have before you get caught different from the feeling you have after you get caught? (125 words at least).
6. There are always consequences to doing wrong, even if you don’t get caught. Think of five examples of people doing someone wrong and what the consequences might be even if nobody ever found out. An example: Say I never noticed that your calls are what caused the phone bill to be $75 higher than usual; so you didn’t "get caught." Say I had planned to spend that much on you at the mall, or for a special Christmas present; but because the phone bill was higher than I expected, I was unable to. The consequences, which you may have never known about, were that you didn’t get the stuff I had intended to give you because of your own dishonesty and waste. Another example, and this is a true one: (Relative of mine) stole some magic markers from a store we were in together when we were little. He did not get caught and I did not know about it until we got home. I was completely astounded when he showed them to me. I did not tell on him, but I let him know I thought he had done wrong. He felt remorseful for a long, long time. To this day, I can mention it and it makes him feel a little bad. The consequence: He will always know he did wrong and it will always make him feel bad. Think of your own five examples and write a little about each one. They do not have to be true-to-life. But they have to sound reasonable.
7. You are a good kid, but everyone has room for improvement. Name five areas where you need to improve and write a little about what you plan to do about them.
8. What are you thankful for? List everything you can think of.
9. Above, 14 words are boldfaced. Write out the dictionary explanation of each word. Check the definition that seems to come closest to what I meant. The words you should look up and define are:
Permission.
Judgment.
Right.
Privilege.
Discipline.
Punitive.
Discretion.
Consideration.
Issue.
Trust.
Remorseful.
Consequence.
Astound.
Reasonable.
That's it. I thinked the only one she begged off on was the presidential debate; seems like some school function was going on at the same time. Think I was too harsh? :-)
END
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Oh my gosh, I almost want to confess my own childhood sins! Like the time I was coming home from school for lunch and passed by Jones' Grocery store. The milk truck was there making a delivery, and a lone carton of buttermilk was sitting on the bumper. My 8-year-old mind was remembering that my dad drank buttermilk because of an ulcer. Here was an unguarded carton right in my path. Yup, I took it home. Mom poured dad a glass for lunch. I giggled and said "You didn't even ask how I got it." When she listened to my story, she took me by the shoulder, with the carton in hand, and marched me the block back to Jones' to confess and apologize. Mr. Jones cut me to the quick by telling me how disappointed he was to know he couldn't trust me any more.
I was required to pay for the buttermilk from my allowance and write a letter of apology, and for a month Mr. Jones wouldn't allow me to come into his store without my mother. I had to earn his trust all over again.
As you can tell, the lesson has stayed with me 40+ years, and I learned to value my character. Lessons of that type can be hard to learn but the value is immeasurable.
I was required to pay for the buttermilk from my allowance and write a letter of apology, and for a month Mr. Jones wouldn't allow me to come into his store without my mother. I had to earn his trust all over again.
As you can tell, the lesson has stayed with me 40+ years, and I learned to value my character. Lessons of that type can be hard to learn but the value is immeasurable.
Welp, I remember my own early transgression like it was yesterday, too. Me and my dad at the barber shop. I was little enough that the barber still had to put the padded 2-by-six across the arms of the chair so he could reach my head without havin' to stoop. After I got my hair cut, and Daddy was fixin' to get his, he peeled a dollar out of his billfold, handed it to me and told me I could go next door to the 5-and-10 for some candy, but could only spend 10 cents and to bring him change. I spent it all, of course, and he looked down at me from under his big ol' sweaty farmer's hat and said, "Well, I gues this means I can't trust you," or something similar, which broke my lil redneck heart and haunts me to this day.
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