Once Were Slappers.

School holidays and wet and miserable ... what do you do?
Having had cause to go to the local library one option was obvious: bundle up the entourage and go to the library ... good for the elder ones, but the preschoolers, well ... increasingly frenetic attempts to distract them from their increasingly, "I don't want to be here" remonstrations, which of course quickly reach the point of 'everyone's looking' and those stares of disapproval and disparagment that only librarians, judges and school teachers can, oh so effectively, transmit over long distances.
So these little errants are dragged screaming from the premises ... and dragged because they don't want to be there and because they don't want to go. And all this with the elder ones showing varying degrees of embarassment and a similar reluctance to leave ... "Oh mum, I haven't ..." and being summarily dismissed, because you can often do that to older ones.
And then trying to get them in to the car, screaming, writhing and belting them up ... because all of this is what good mums do.
I watched two screamers and twisters ... three attempts it took one young mother to get the child in to the car and much rapid brusque movement to tie them down ... and she was very very aware of the public nature of her actions. Two elder children turned and yelled murderously at the youngster, one leaned forward and silence .. the process was completed and they left in their meticulously groomed Subaru.
The second had similar difficulty, but was considerably more brusque ... the child tried to dash from the open car door to come to an arm wrenching stop on the ground, kicking, flailing and screaming library books fell to the wet ground from the mother's free hand which resulted in an overall body tension that could be felt ... yards away ... and then came the grip, first to the shouders forcing him in to submission, forced in to the ground and with a strength that could only be found in the extremes of frustration, exasperation and anger, like a shot he was rammed in to the car seat and tied down ... screaming defiance. She hopped in to the car and began to back out ... the door flew open and the screams again poured out. She stopped, ran round the car, yelled, jerky in her fury, slammed the door and returned to backing out ... and again the door flew open ... brake lights on ... screams, she runs round, leans in to the car and the ensuing squeeze go on with passion ... silence ... and she shuts the door, straightens up and looks at me looking at her and gives me that unquestionable, unmistakable, "Bradford can go and get fucked" look. She continued backing her immaculate Mercedes from the park and drove off, relief starting to soften her demeanour.

and the lessons learned:
1. debark your kids ... makes any public misbehaviour considerably less public,
2. don't undertake any public outings as a family ... different things interest children of different ages for different lengths of time ... patience cannot be taught, it happens ... consideration of others cannot be taught, it just happens,
3. increase their concentration spans with video games and then terminate public activities before this limit is reached,
4. elder children can be used to effectively suppress the behaviour of those younger or lesser, you just need a reliable cue both to begin this and to end it,
5. Be careful of them pulling away and twisting -it's liable to pull the arm out of its socket,
6. pulling hair, squeezing the neck muscle, rough handling, twisting ears, pinching even with a twist aren't really a good look even if they can be executed semi-discreetly,
7. learn pressure points - these are therapeutic, minimse any undue bruising or swelling, are very effective at suppressing excess, are discreetly executable and enable the full release of any vindictive intent that may be lingering there underneath and with pretty much complete impunity.
8. don't get a 'family car.' Two seater sports car and the problem is solved, dissent becomes an at home phenomenon and private. Arguably the anti-smacking legislation is 'anti-family,' so go for the ride.


... and as for Sue. Well she came to realise the full extent of the damage she had done to children and their families and spent the rest of her days miserable, repentant and trying to repeal that law that she had so impulsively and egotistically been pivotal to invoking.