agonyaunt | Two letters on terrible parenting choices

Two letters on terrible parenting choices

1. Dear Care and Feeding,

The other day, I was looking for one of my 3-year-old son “Zephyr’s” toy dinosaur cars and asked my husband “Todd” if he had any idea where it was. Todd replied that he threw it away to punish Zephyr for calling him “dumb.” I was appalled. When I asked him why he would do something so extreme, his answer was that it was “effective.” Several more of Zephyr’s dinosaur cars are missing as well, along with some of his other toys, and I had assumed they were just misplaced. I asked my husband if he had taken them away as well, and Todd said yes. For the last month or so, he has implemented a new rule: Zephyr will lose a toy whenever he does something wrong. Todd then asked whether I had noticed that Zephyr has been more compliant as of late. My son has, in fact, been more willing to follow the rules, but I have also noticed him becoming increasingly withdrawn and very protective of his belongings. We recently enrolled him in preschool, and I had assumed that was the reason behind it.

I related to Todd the changes I’ve noticed in Zephyr’s behavior, and my fear that what he is doing is emotionally damaging to our son. I told him I wanted it to stop immediately—there are other ways of enforcing rules, like time-out or taking away screen time or privileges. Todd countered that we’ve tried those punishments and they don’t work. According to him, a child Zephyr’s age is capable of understanding that “either he behaves, or soon he’ll have nothing to play with.”

Our son is a normal 3-year-old who does normal 3-year-old things like saying “no” sometimes when told to do something, or not wanting to go to bed when he’s supposed to, or being unwilling to try a new food. He’s not some hyperactive tornado who refuses to listen to anything. I am extremely concerned about how this will impact his mental health and his relationship with his dad, but my husband believes his approach is best. When I challenged Todd to find an expert in child development who would agree with him, his response was that “anything these so-called experts come up with doesn’t work in the real world.” Short of checking the trash before it’s taken out, what are my options here?

—Taking It Too Far

Dear Taking It Too Far,

It is both ridiculous and very sad that you might actually need to check the trash to make sure your husband hasn’t thrown out your 3-year-old’s belongings in a fit of pique. Zephyr is an actual child; what is Todd’s excuse for acting like one? I’d consider this a serious red flag—not only because it’s an over-the-top punishment for normal if irritating 3-year-old behavior, but also because your husband is flatly dismissing your concerns and insisting on this when you explicitly told him to stop. You are not his child; you’re supported to be an equal partner and co-parent. He shouldn’t proceed with a form of “discipline”—though really, this is just punishment—that you are not ok with.

I do worry that this may be just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Todd’s harshness and unrealistic expectations regarding toddler behavior. That he’s been so intractable when you attempted to challenge him is not a good sign. And let’s face facts: Someone who is unreasonable and overly punitive with a 3-year-old is probably not going to let up as that child gets older. Today it’s throwing away toys over minor infractions—what’s Todd going to do to an older kid who’s acting up a little, or a rebellious teenager who knows how to push his buttons? In what other ways might you have to try to shield Zephyr from Todd’s overreactions and excessive ideas about punishment? And just how much mediation and negotiation are you willing to do with your spouse, now and for the rest of your son’s life?

It should have been a major wake-up call for Todd when you told him that you worried his behavior might be damaging his relationship with your son. A parent with an ounce of humility would have taken that to heart. Their relationship may not be your responsibility, but your son’s wellbeing is.

Tell Todd that as parents, you need to be on the same page about reasonable consequences for misbehavior. He doesn’t get to unilaterally decide how your child is going to be punished, or punish Zephyr in ways you think are wrong. All sorts of punishments, including corporal methods, might be “effective” if literally all a parent cares about is a child’s compliance. But they aren’t effective if the goal is to be a loving parent whom a child can actually trust.
Let Todd know that he is mostly teaching Zephyr to fear him and his reactions, not do certain things because they are the right things to do. And make sure your husband also gets the message that because he is being so disrespectful of you, ignoring your concerns about his method of punishment, this isn’t just a parenting problem—it is now a huge problem in your marriage.

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2. Dear Prudence,

Recently, my friends were talking about discipling kids. During that conversation, I mentioned that when I was younger, my father would discipline my siblings and me by hitting us. One of my friends decided that she was angry and traumatized on my behalf, and she says she won’t let it go unless confront my father the way she wants me to. In fact, my siblings and I have already had this conversation with my father and quite frankly, we were demons, and spanking was one of the only ways we learned consequences. We did insane things: I remember once we thought it was a good idea to jump on a glass coffee table, even though we had done that once before and my brother fell through it and cut up his legs.

I have a good relationship with my father, as do my siblings, and now we actually talk about things. Our dad apologized and said he thought he was too scary at times and we accepted and acknowledged there were times we willfully tried to get a rise out of him.
How do I get my friend to drop this? Her childhood may have been painful for her, but I have made peace with mine. I have given her several chances to back off; do I owe it one more conversation or should I cut her off? Usually we are great, supportive friends.

—Over the Past

Dear Over the Past,

I can’t tell how direct you were with your friend about needing her to back off about this, so perhaps one more conversation is warranted. It sounds to me like you’ve settled things properly with your father, so it’s very strange (and meddlesome!) that your friend can’t seem to let this go, or that she insists you can only address it in a way that is “correct” to her.

Tell your friend that while you appreciate her concern, you’re satisfied with the way you’ve addressed your childhood with your father and with the state of your current relationship with him. Explain that if she continues to express judgment about this, you are going to consider that as grounds for pausing this friendship, because you’re not comfortable carrying on a friendship where someone feels entitled to tell you how to conduct matters with your own parents. Depending on how close you are, you might express concern for how she seems to be grappling with her own childhood, and that perhaps she’s equating her situation with yours. A kind and genuine “Hey, what’s really going on here for you?” often works wonders.

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1. Zephyr? Okay, then!

With that out of the way, LW1 needs to insist on joint parenting classes and couples counseling - it's either that or a divorce attorney. And in the meantime, if they do not agree on a discipline practice, neither of them does it.

2. See, this right here is why I try not to use the A word for culturally normative parenting practices. (Unless, of course, the other person says it first.) It just never brings you anywhere good.

Was LW2's father abusive? You could certainly make that case, and another child growing up in that same situation might well label it that way! I wouldn't argue with them if they did.

But LW2 does not think it was abusive, and even if it was, Dad has apologized for his behavior and his children have forgiven him. It is not any of Friend's business.

With that said, I do think LW2 could benefit from doing some research on spanking. Among other things, it seems to me that it is very possible that they and their siblings were not "demons", they were normal children who acted out because of the "scary" environment of their home. I don't say this because I think LW2 needs to hate their dad or refuse to forgive him or be sad about their childhood - I say this because they might have kids themself and really ought to have a more nuanced and updated perspective on discipline.

(I also think that once your child has jumped through a glass coffee table once you get a normal non-glass coffee table until they're grown. But then, who expects them to do it twice!?)

Given his response to experts I doubt he'd listen to a therapist. Take the child and run.

No, but for LW's peace of mind they have to give that as an option.

And who knows? Maybe if LW makes it clear that Todd is old enough to understand that if he acts like this, he loses things he cares about, then maybe Todd will surprise us all.

This is unlikely! But it's not completely impossible. Just very improbable.

Maybe if LW makes it clear that Todd is old enough to understand that if he acts like this, he loses things he cares about, then maybe Todd will surprise us all.
I laughed because the other option was to cry.

I am laughing very, very bitterly at the idea that just occurred to me that Zephyr might figure out the same thing when he's a bit older, and start throwing away Todd's car keys or something. (Reminded of a line I once heard, names changed despite this being several decades ago: "Ben is my good boy, but Davey put the car keys in the blender." Davey was I think about four.)

Aw, c'mon! I like the name Zephyr! Have a buddy that has it. Usually it just gets shortened to Zeph, though.

1. The trash that needs to be taken out is Todd. Unfortunately, he seems to be the kind of authoritarian person who will not actually listen to reason. I really don’t see much hope here, but the LW will still need to go through all the motions to 1) know that he’s been given chances, and 2) collect evidence that he should only get supervised visits once they do split.

The trash that needs to be taken out is Todd.
You said it.

Letter #1: I'm literally speechless. Todd is so astonishingly cruel. I can't imagine that Todd's nastiness is limited to throwing away Zephyr's toys when he talks back, either. I hope LW#1 gets the hell out of there and takes Zephyr with her. Poor Zephyr needs a supportive parent and a good therapist.

I know this is on my mind because I recently finished reading Wild Faith: How the Christian Right is Taking Over America (this podcast ep interview with the author is a good summary if you don't have the stomach to read the whole book; it's pretty bleak) and a lot of it is about authoritarian parenting and demanding "compliance" from children, rather than encouraging kindness and thoughtfulness.

I'm literally sick thinking about it. I can't get over how mean it is.

I love In Bed With The Right! And definitely planning to read Wild Faith.

But yeah omg, please run LW.

Thank you for linking to the podcast episode! I'll see how far I can listen before I set my earbuds on fire.

"Let Todd know that he is mostly teaching Zephyr to fear him and his reactions..."

This is what Todd wants. Todd is an authoritarian who believes that fear is the way to control. Todd is not interested in having a good relationship with his child in the sense that most would mean that---he wants his child to "respect" him by walking on eggshells, never disagreeing, and not being fully, humanly himself around Todd (or at all).

Todd will certainly not stop throwing out the child's toys or bullying him in other ways.

This is a marriage- and parenting-counseling or divorce question. Todd gets one chance to say yes or no to counseling and one chance to improve himself. LW should be logging and documenting all of Todd's "discipline" BS for the custody hearings.

No judge is going to enforce a supervision rule over this, I think. And unless Todd is sufficiently controlling and abusive of LW I doubt he's going to ask for more than every-other-weekend. (Of course, if he is then that is a big problem.)

Not only is 1 shitty parenting, why *throw it away*? That's just ... permanent. Which probably IS the point, but.

I hope LW 2 doesn’t have kids or plans to have kids. They sound really blasé about spanking Maybe I side with Friend

I want to assassinate Todd.

Oh, I think it’s very likely that LW is downplaying exactly what they said to Friend that garnered this response.

But you can’t convince people they were abused if they don’t want to believe it. And more importantly, using that word won’t get them to consider changing how they do things with their kids.

There are arguments that seem to help, but they all go out the window once somebody insist on saying “you were abused and also, if you do the same thing, you’re a child abuser”.

It’s really not worth it unless you’re a judge or a social worker and what you say goes, like it or not.

I dunno. I was spanked, and it was absolutely not abusive, and my dad would absolutely not have spanked us if it hadn't been culturally normative at the time. I know this was not the experience of so many other kids who were spanked abusively -- without knowing any details, I know you have a way more fraught relationship with your parents than I do -- but some spanking really was just a thing Some People Thought They Were Supposed To Do.

Don't get me wrong, I'm thrilled it's no longer acceptable, and if my dad were alive and I could ask him I am sure he'd say the same. Even when it's not abusive, painful, or humiliating, it's not acceptable for any number of reasons we'd all agree on. But it's just very possible LW2 really didn't have the experience of the spanking being abusive.

Parenting has norms in any subculture and era, and sometimes those norms are inherently abusive (like the Pearls -- those are the ones who beat their kids for christ, right?) and sometimes they're just... moments in time. Tears in rain. Something. My dad also smoked in the house, and years later, he regretted it; every parent lives in a moment and does what they can with the knowledge they have.

like the Pearls -- those are the ones who beat their kids for christ, right?

They're not the only ones, but yeah, they're absolutely 100% connected to several straight-up murders, most (but by no means all) of adopted children.

ugh, I forgot about the murders. what absolute monsters.

Those aren’t mutually exclusive. Something can be what was normalized and done culture-wide *and* be abusive. Something can be perceived by the victim as not-abusive *and* be abusive. People can regret their behavior later *and* it was abusive. I get that you don’t want to perceive it that way, but there isn’t “abusive spanking” and “non-abusive spanking” - all spanking is an authority figure hitting someone over whom they have power.

It's good and right to be opposed to physical punishment, and to say it can't be non-problematic. It is good and correct that society has moved toward respecting the physical autonomy of children. I agree 100%. My dad, were he alive today, would also agree.

It's also true that, absent context, you can't say that another person was inherently a victim and their parent was inherently abusive. That's not how this works, either.

It isn’t true simply because one says it is. The only necessary context is already provided - physical violence was used by an authority figure against a child. There’s no further context that can mitigate that basic fact. There’s a lot of things people say to rationalize it to themselves (on either side) - they/I never hit in anger, they/I gave X numbers of warnings first, they/I stated calm during the act, it was just a single spank at a time, they/I never used anything but a hand, it was done over clothes, they/I comforted me/my child afterward, they/I waited for X hours first, etc. None of these practices take away from the base fact that an authority figure coercively used violence on a child.

I even heard someone once say that theirs was okay because they had a contract they had signed with their parent, after discussion, about how and when corporal violence would be used, and that contract was respected. But a child can’t provide valid consent to violence being used against them by an authority figure. They’re not adults who societally have lateral power to each other (as when similar contracts are sometimes used in a consensual BDSM relationship that involves corrective discipline).

My motivation to respond to your comment is because I’ve spent the last decades of my life trying to reduce physical violence against children. When these kinds of attitudes are shared - that there’s a way to do spanking that _isn’t_ abusive; and there’s a difference between “abusive spanking” and “non-abusive spanking”, it inadvertently provides support for the idea that _some_ spanking is okay, even if not ideal or something you’d do yourself. _Some_ spanking isn’t inherently harmful and abusive. And the folks who are looking to make the case to themselves on why spanking is okay latch on to those, because they all believe the spanking _they’d_ do is the “non-abusive” kind.

And that’s why I push back. It’s not about changing your mind; you’re not going to do that, because you’re invested in a particular view of your history, just as we all are. But I can’t let the idea that there’s “non-abusive” and “abusive” categories of spanking stand unchallenged on its own, because I don’t know if there’s parents or parents-to-be who may read it and find further support for the idea that one can spank without it being abusive.

I was a groomed child who became a molested teen, and it took me a long time to get myself out of that mindset. I used to say things like “fifteen-year-okds can consent” because I believed that to be my experience, even for 10+ years afterward, and so I was speaking from my experience. The problem is that I didn’t yet understand that I wasn’t truly consenting; I’d been groomed from childhood to be pliable to the sexual wills of grown men. I cringe now when I think about how I used to post things like that, because I know I unwittingly gave ammo both to the creeps out there (who mostly want to believe that kids like me “want it” and so molesting them isn’t harmful) and the apologists (who excuse it when older people molest teens, for a variety of reasons that boil down to “it isn’t really a big deal, they’re consenting”). Giving ammo for people to feel more secure in doing harm was certainly never my intention, but what matters is the effect, and that’s the risk any time we share things that can legitimize doing harm for certain readers.

I’ve said what I felt needed to be said, and I’ll stand down. Feel free to have the last word.

After some consideration, I'm going to close this thread. You've all been very considered and polite, but I think we've reached the end of meaningful discussion.

Yeah, I think the friend is definitely correct that LW hasn't fully processed their childhood, and that's proven by the language of their explanation here. But the friend doesn't have a right to dictate what LW says to their father, and seems to have been arguing counterproductively, since they're just pissing LW off. LW probably needs therapy about it, not another confrontation, but if they DO want to discuss it further with their father, they still probably should think a lot more about it themselves first.

Edited 2025-02-25 19:06 (UTC)

Short of checking the trash before it’s taken out, what are my options here?

Legit thought she was referring to checking Todd’s behavior before kicking him to the curb, was disappointed to realize later she was being literal and referring to refuse-trash, not trash-Todd.

I guarantee you he makes a big production out of throwing the toy away and then stands over his kid to drink in the devastation. People like him draw their energy from the suffering of others, because they’ve conflated being able to cause others suffering with being powerful.

1. I also find it shocking that Todd started inflicting this punishment without consulting with his wife first. And unless Todd is a stay-at-home dad (good god I hope not), LW must have witnessed many of Zephyr's so-called "misbehaviours" that Todd thought were worth punishing like that. So did Todd throw the toys away afterwards, sneakily behind her back?

I don't think Todd will mend his ways. Time to put him out with the trash.

Edited (clarification) 2025-02-25 09:05 (UTC)

Yeah, that's actually a really good point - not saying anything suggests deceit or contempt, imo. I say 'contempt' because it's such an intense level of "I don't need to talk to my wife & co-parent about how/if we do serious punishment".

1. My husband threatened our child with this precisely once. I don't think he was expecting me to get quite so angry about it (which was partly because it was something my father did to me) but he got the point. After that, we sometimes did temporary confiscations, but nothing permanent.

Todd reminds me of King Trump and his sidekick.

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