Admittedly, I know nothing about raising children. I don’t have any kids, and I’ve never really taken care of anyone else’s kids when they weren’t around. So I’m not exactly qualified to give any advice on disciplining your children or anything remotely related to it. But I do have common sense, and I am a (mostly) mature adult. I don’t know everything, but I definitely know this.
Never, EVER call your child a piece of shit.
Today, I was waiting for the bus, minding my own business, when a car drove by with the windows down. I heard a kid crying, and a man shouting, presumably at said child, and a phrase like “you piece of shit” and “get your ass out of the car”. The perpetrator was a man whose age I estimate at mid-40’s, very angry-looking face; the object of his verbal abuse was a girl of no more than 10. When she got out of the car, composed herself and stopped crying, she took the man’s hand and walked across the street.
As I stared daggers at this man, perhaps the girl’s father, I thought she’d be better off getting hit by a car. At least that pain would go away. The pain of a trusted adult hurling epithets, that will last forever. Then I tried to work up a cry, at 7:38PM waiting for the #55 bus.
My ersatz tears were first for myself, absorbing the shock and insult of being called excrement by anyone as a child. Hell, as an adult it would probably reduce me to a blubbering pile of nerves, hovering somewhere between outrage and humiliation and embarrassment. I’ve never been called such, nor have I ever used that particular phrase to refer to a human being unless I really didn’t like them. Like the ex-boyfriend of a friend who was addicted to heroin and crystal methamphetamine, but convinced her that he was dying of a brain tumor. He’s a piece of shit. I still can’t manage to work up enough bile to use the phrase on anyone else, let alone to be the object of that kind of ire. Again, tears, shame, hyperventilation.
Then I cried for the girl that would never be. I’m no shrink, but I’ve had a lot of therapy and I know that women get their ideas about men from Daddy, and a lot of self-esteem stuff comes from him too. I love my father. I think he’s amazing (even if a little over-protective), and I couldn’t have asked for better. Since I’ll never meet a man as good as my Dad, I’ll be single forever. But my self-esteem is pretty high because if a guy even thinks about yelling at me, his ass is gone, I’m too good to put up with that mess. Unfortunately, the girl I saw today will probably never do that. She already thinks she’s less than human, equivalent to feces, not worth much to the man in her life. But she still loves him, relies on him to protect her from strangers on the street, but not necessarily from himself. This girl with the irate father, she could be anything in the world with loving parents. She could be a doctor or lawyer. She could be a mother, a teacher, a writer. She could be a child without worry, securely happy, dreaming of puppies and rainbows and ice cream sundaes instead of teaching herself how to behave so that Daddy doesn’t yell.
I wanted to run across the street and grab this girl I saw today, tell her she’s beautiful, and shove the man to the ground yelling “citizen’s arrest”. I wanted the Parent Police to emerge from the bushes and handcuff the assailant, frisking him for his storehouse of insults and cruel barbs, as if they could be taken away that easily. I wanted him to be taken away forever, and for this girl to get another father – kind of like Obama’s cash for clunkers – a new model, full of hugs and ready to roll.
Instead I breathed deeply to lower my blood pressure, promised to hug my nieces the next time I see them, and to tell my Dad how much I love him.
