This Is What Spanking Is For

Okay, people differ greatly on child rearing, I get that.  Because my parents divorced when I was six, I actually had the benefit of two completely different lifestyles, and looking back upon those eras of my life, I can now rationally compare them.  Under my dad who was extremely compromising, reasonably well off, and refused to punish, my grades and hygene fell, and my weight increased.  Under my stricter, poorer, mom who at just under five feet struck sheer terror not only in me but in other neighborhood kids as well, I was healthier, better behaved, and though I still refused to do homework, I managed to carry an above 4.00 GPA.

Needless to say, now that I’m in the role of the parent, I’m not quite as vicious as my mom was, but I am strict.  I do believe in spanking, and after reading this article, I think Bush 41 might want to consider that as well.

These are distressing days for the Bush family patriarch, only the second former president in American history, after John Adams, to see his son take the White House. At 83, he finds it tough to watch his son get criticized from the sidelines; often, he likens himself to a Little League father whose kid is having a rough game. And like the proud and angry Little League dad who cannot help but yell at the umpire, sometimes he just cannot help getting involved.

The official line from the White House is that 41, as he is known in Bush circles, gives advice to 43 only when asked. But interviews with a broad range of people close to both presidents — including family members like the elder Mr. Bush’s daughter, Doro Bush Koch, and aides who have worked for both men, like Andrew H. Card Jr. — suggest a far more complicated father-son dynamic, in which the former president is not nearly so distant as the White House would have people believe.

Problem is, running the country is nothing like the Little League, and that is not the situation to start screaming at the umpire.  Oh no.  No, I believe if one of my daughters got into the White House one day, and they started presidenting like the current one, I’d have to borrow one of my mom’s old sayings.

“Go get a switch.”

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