Who's going to raise my son?

Typically I leave posts about Dylan off this site and place them on his, but this is more a rant and rave about the Canadian government than specifically about Dylan.

Yesterday, I was reading the regular daily news and I read an article about how a 12 year old girl in Quebec who was grounded and not allowed to go on a school trip. So, she took her father to court citing that the punishment was too severe, and the judge sided with the girl. That’s right, a Superior Court judge told a father his punishment was unduly severe and he was ordered to let her go on the trip.

I then came home at the end of my day and had a conversation with Tamara where she was talking about an article in the Times Transcript about how someone was being fined or thrown in jail for spanking his kids. I don’t have the link so I can’t speak to the details of the story.

I also then read about how here in Canada, a new law has been approved by the Senate, and will now go to the House of Commons to be approved, that makes it illegal to spank your child.

WTF is wrong with the Canadian courts and law makers? I would have expected this from a country like the USA where people sue people everyday for such retarded things. But here in Canada? What the hell is going on when the government starts to intervene in how a parent should discipline their child? It’s none of their gawd-damn business and they should leave the parenting to parents.

The whole spanking thing is completely over the top. I was spanked as a kid, and many of my friends were spanked. Did it ruin our lives and cause emotional damage? No. We’re perfectly fine. There’s a line between spanking your kid on the ass for bad behavior, and beating them. I think what the government is trying to do is to protect kids from being physically abused and for that, I understand the logic behind bills and laws such as this, but the fact remains that unless it is excessive force, a good old spanking won’t hurt anyone.

I am sure that I have posted about the whole spanking thing before but I cannot for the life of me find the post, but oh well. The point is, it’s not the government’s place to start telling me how I should discipline my kid.

That brings me to the next point which is this judge who apparently has rocks in her head. Now we’re getting the Canadian government involved when a kid doesn’t like what his/her parents do for other means of punishment. This kid, posted somewhat inappropriate photos of herself on some website, and that’s why the father banned her from going on the trip. Yet somehow, the judge seemed to think it was better for her to go and go against the father’s wishes. WTF?!?!?!

This sets an awful precedent for the future. Does this now mean that when I ground Dylan for doing something I feel is inappropriate, that he can go to a judge and get the judge to side in his favor, and have the courts order me to let him do what he wants?

The world we live in now is a world where kids are not allowed to be disciplined. Teachers have had all of their ability to do anything about troublesome students taken away from them. Students are told to take “time outs” but time and time again, policies and procedures protect the student so at any time, no matter what someone does, they rule in favor of the student, and guess what that translates into? It translates into a world where children know they can say and do whatever they want because neither their parents, the teachers, or anyone else, will stop them.

We’re supposed to try and communicate with our kids and let them know in a calm way what they are doing wrong. Uhm, I’ve only been a dad for less than a year and I can tell you that any kid who is not getting what they want is not going to be calm, and they are not going to be rational. They are going to be irrational and not listen. That’s what kids do. So, are we supposed to just let them run rampant? No, you do whatever you feel as a parent you can do, to make them understand that some things are ok, and some are not. Don’t cross the line of being abusive, and always listen to your kids, but you are the parent, and no kid knows what is best for them more than you do. That’s what makes you the parent. You’ve already been through a hell of a lot more than any kid has so that gives you insight that they don’t have or don’t understand and quite frankly, until they get a little older, won’t care about.

It bothers me to no end to see that it’s getting worse. I mean what’s next, are the cops going to show up at my doorstep telling Tamara she can’t say “No” to Dylan when he tries to eat the cat food because it infringes on his right to choose what food he can or can’t eat?

To be blunt, fuck that. I will never harm my son. I will never beat my son. I will love him, protect him, and look out for him. And if that means I have to tap him on his ass after trying several times to make him understand what he’s doing is wrong, then so be it. If I have to ground him because he’s going beyond the boundaries I’ve set for him, so be it.

No one has the right to tell me how to raise my kid as long as I am being a good, honest, and loving parent. And I think everyone I know would agree.

So there, I’ve had my say.