Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Tactical Defense for Childcare

I have been pressuring My Gay Husband for years to marry me (in a legal sense; we're already married emotionally) so we could then team up and be famous anthropologists. And since I clearly think we're two of the most brilliant people on earth, I also think he should drunkenly impregnate me so we could raise a whole slew of brilliant anthropologists. We'd be like Margaret Mead and her special friend (read: lesbian lover) Ruth Benedict, only more fabulous, attractive, and funnier.

But My Gay Husband objects to basically all of that. He doesn't want to be a famous anthropologist because he doesn't want to be poor for the majority of his life. He refuses to raise children with me because I'm a vehement supporter of spanking children, a practice he finds "barbaric and trashy." This is usually when I draw penises all over his car windows with white shoe polish and then leave a note on my fancy stationery that reads "Who's barbaric and trashy now, biatch??" And then he replies: "Still you, Maggie. Still you."

When Bobby Habibi and I were in the preliminary talks of nanny-hiring, I mentioned that part of my childcare doctrine is that I don't spank other people's kids. Bobby replied, "Oh, of course not. We never hit our children." I didn't know what to say. In my head, I was saying "Uhhhh ... Maybe you misunderstood. I entirely expect you to spank your children, I just won't do your dirty work for ya!" As a side note, even if Bobby Habibi and Coco were to flee the country and will all their children to me, Dusty would be the only one I would even need to bend over my knee because the other four are absolute-cutie-pie-angel-darlings (I will pause here for a moment for you to experience your own disbelief/jealousy).

So NannyGarcia does not spank. She also does not yell because it desensitizes children to loud voices. So when you really need to yell (for example, when they're about to walk in front of a bus or spill kool-aid on Coco's white carpet), it means something and they pay attention.

Since I refrain from these two staples of childcare discipline, I have developed my own form of discipline, based entirely on shock-and-awe. My kids often have to eat fruit before they get to eat nasty junk food (that I love with all my heart and soul) and one time Trixie threw her banana in the garbage while I was in the next room with Dash. But my super strength Nanny-Hearing detected this and I went into the kitchen, fished out said banana, and gave it back to Trixie. I didn't actually make her eat it, but I made her think I was going to make her eat it. Or if the kids have a toy in the backseat of NannyMobile and they fight over it or hit each other with it, I grab it and throw it out of the window. This not only shocks my children, but also the people driving near me. Flying legos aren't terribly common around here.

3 comments:

  1. Do you nanny 5 kids? What is the age range? Back when mine were young, I could barely make it through the day with just two.

    You know the secret, though. You can't just threaten, you've got to roll down that window and toss those legos no matter what poor pedestrian gets it in the eye.

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  2. I don't know what the going rate for a nanny is, but you should be getting combat pay.

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  3. I know where you got the shock and awe technique. I used it on you and your sisters. Only you make it sound much funnier. My use of it was usually accompanied by hysterical crying (mine, not yours).

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