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It's time for another Wo'C World's Worst
Parent™ competition. [Let's meet]
Lisa Whelchel, who used to play rich bitch Blair on "The Facts of Life."
Now she's a home-schooling wife of a fundamentalist Christian minister,
and has written several how-to books about parenting, including one
on creative punishments for kids.
The Wash
Post recently did a piece on "hotsaucing"as a way to "spank the
tongues" of misbehaving children. Lisa's advice on the subject was
featured.
The hot pepper
technique's current popularity is due in part to Whelchel, a former
Mickey Mouse Club Mouseketeer and actress who played the character Blair
on the television series "The Facts of Life" in the 1980s.
In "Creative
Correction," now in its fifth printing, the mother of three provides
parents with a variety of tips.
For example, she
suggests hiding something a child has failed to put away, to teach the
lesson that things left out may disappear. She suggests telling a child
who refuses to hold your hand while crossing a street, "I can either
hold your hand or hold your hair."
In addition, Whelchel
offers the following: "For lying or other offenses of the tongue, I
'spank' my kids' tongues. I put a tiny drop of hot sauce on the end of
my finger and dab it onto my child's tongue. It stings for a while, but
it abates. (It's the memory that lingers!)"
Macing the kids will also create memories
that linger. In fact, any number of chemical weapons make great
disciplinary aids, in that they require much less physical exertion on the
parent's part than do old-fashioned beatings.
The Post
reports that Lisa says that she knows that the technique can be "abused."
Which is good of her to concede, since a Google search of "hot sauce"
"child abuse" and "murder" comes up with 145 hits.
"If there's a
mom who shakes the bottle on the kid's tongue, that mom probably does
deserve to have someone poking into her business," Whelchel said.
Probably???
"But I think most moms
are caring and intuitive. You can't throw out a bunch of good stuff
because of the exceptions."
"Caring and intuitive mothers choose
Tabasco brand sauce." That could be their new slogan!
"Creative Correction"
provides long lists of scriptural passages that, in Whelchel's view,
justify a variety of disciplinary practices.
For example, she
quotes the Book of Proverbs -- "The mouth of the righteous brings forth
wisdom, but a perverse tongue will be cut out" -- and follows with this
suggestion: "A short pinch by a clothespin on the tongue can discourage
foul language."
Hey, the book said "will be cut out"
-- I didn't see anything about clothespins. I doubt that God is going
to approve of Lisa's modification of his parenting advice.
And while a therapist advised that hotsaucing
can burn a child's esophagus and cause the tongue to swell,
posing a potential choking hazard, some mothers besides Lisa support the
practice.
Crosen, who learned
about the technique from a friend who carries packets of hot sauce in
her purse to correct her own children's misbehavior, said she
administers the sauce only "after many warnings, and for extreme
circumstances," like when her son called his 3-year-old sister a
"crybaby."
Whoa, if she
considers that an "extreme circumstance" which requires a bio-chemical
response, I'd never survive life at her house.
Like some other
parents who use hot sauce, Crosen believes it is an appropriate
punishment for "defiant talk. . . . I use it when the mouth is the
offending party. He needs to learn to control what's coming out of his
mouth. If it's his tongue that gets him in trouble, it's his tongue that
gets punished." As a Christian, she believes that "children need to
respect and obey [parents] or they won't learn to respect and obey God.
God won't hot sauce you, but you need to learn consequences."
However, God
WOULD hot sauce you if He wasn't so busy helping sports teams.
Anyway, Lisa recommends other
creative disciplinary methods besides hot sauce -- such as spanking.
Let's enjoy an excerpt from
her book.
Using
corporal punishment while my children were young actually afforded our
whole family more freedom in the long run, because it established
boundaries and reminded the kiddos who was in charge--freeing me up to
try other, more creative corrections as they matured.
Yes, like Meghan advised us
once, if you break the poppets spirits while they're young, then it
makes them much easier to control as you get older. And they know that it
hurts you a lot more than it hurts them.
Somehow, they intuitively know spankings are good for them, and that
they receive them not only because they deserve it, but also because
their parents love them.
Well, I intuitively knew that
my father was big and scary and mean, and that he was hitting me because
he was mad. But let's see if Lisa can convince me otherwise.
Let me see
if I can convince you.
[...]
Recently my
older daughter defied her grandmother's instruction to put the Popsicle
back in the freezer until after dinner. I stopped my work and called to
her.
"Haven, meet
me in the bathroom!"
A few
minutes later, I found her there.
"Now,
Haven," I began, "why are you getting this correction?"
Her head
hanging, she mumbled, "Because I went ahead and ate the Popsicle even
though Grandmother told me not to."
"Why was
that wrong?" I persisted.
"Because
Grandmother is my authority and I need to obey her."
I continued.
"Why do you think she told you not to eat the Popsicle?"
Haven stared
at the floor. "Because we're going to have dinner soon and it might ruin
my appetite."
Haven," I told her, "I'm going to need to spank you because Proverbs
23:13-14 says, 'Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you punish
him with the rod, he will not die. Punish him with the rod and save his
soul from death.' There may come a day when Grandmother tells you not to
eat something because she knows it could make you sick. You must be in
the habit of obeying her. Do you understand?"
"Yes,
ma'am," she said quietly.
I beckoned
her toward me, where I was seated on the toilet lid. "Now, lean over my
lap."
She bent
over, submitting to my instruction.
After I
spanked her--eight times for her age--I invited her to sit on my lap.
Cradling her in my arms, I said, "Haven, I love you and forgive you, but
you need to ask Jesus to forgive you for not obeying Him. Remember, He
is your ultimate authority."
Hey, when Jesus tells her to
stay out of the popsicles, I bet she'll listen now!
Next time: As an object lesson,
Lisa puts poison in the Oreos and then forbids the kids to eat them. Hey,
the Bible mandates the death penalty for disobedient children. |