OK, so here's a little background information. When you adopt, before you can begin, the first thing you must do is pay a social worker a wheelbarrow full of money for the privilege of being raked over the coals and given the third degree. Multiple interviews are conducted as a couple and as individuals. These interviews unfold like a friendly deposition, but in our case, without the friendly. Then there's a visit to your home to ensure that you don't posses an evil torture chamber or faulty smoke detectors. All the findings are written up in a handsome report wherein hopefully a green light is given, thumbs up to the world that, yes indeedy, you are deemed fit to adopt a child. The entire process and resulting report is called a "Home Study."
The social worker who is assigned to your case is the sole conductor of the home study. Ergo, she has all the power. She is Pontius Pilot, Judge Judy and the key master all wrapped up in a tasty morsel of Jewish dowager Empress. She's large and in charge and there's not a soul in the room who doesn't know it.
I managed to piss her off right away buy handing all of my paperwork in quickly. The gall.
"Where do you get off being so organized and efficient?" she may as well have said, "Clearly you don't stand a chance at being a parent, except that, oh, I see here you already are one. Well, not a very good one, I can imagine. If there's one thing a child can't possibly benefit from it's organization."
Then, I imagined her peering over her glasses, saying, "And being a parent to an adopted kid is a whole other ball of wax, you know. They pee differently, sort of leaning to the left with their right foot flexed. When they stub their toe they bleed little pellets and besides, they can control electricity. Are you ready for that? Do you think you can handle that? When they are sad, whatever they touch with their left pinkie turns to dewy moss and they can see through walls. Do you think you can accommodate their special needs?" she asks, without confidence.
"Gee willikers, I think I can, mam," I stammer, "If only there was some far-reaching network available to me where I could reach out and interact with oh, say, thousands of different organizations on adoption or jillions of adoptive parents to gather information on just this subject. Or if, say, there were some kind of store that sold books that had the research findings of a bazillion child psychologists who might be able to point me in the right direction. I suppose I could ask the half a dozen or so neighbors in my .02 mile radius how they parent their adopted kids. But other than that, I just don't know how I'm going to manage out here all alone, floating in the darkness that is my void-home."
Then there's the home study Q and A. This exchange actually did take place.
She looks up from her notebook, "So tell me, how were you disciplined as a child?"
I say, rather matter-of-factly, "Well, there was a fair amount of 'Just wait until your Father gets home.'"
She replies, "And then what?"
I continue nonchalantly, "I was yelled at, spanked, sent to my room, then there was a cool down period, then my parents came up stairs and sat on my bed, apologised and explained why they got mad at me. The they told me they loved me."
"They spanked you?" she asks, knowing that I was because I just told her I was.
"Yes," I falter. Wasn't everyone born between 6000BC and 1981 spanked?
"How often were you spanked?" she presses.
Jeeze, lady, I'm 42. That was half a century ago. I don't know. Um, "Only for the big stuff, when they really wanted to drive an important point home."
"Like what?" she asks.
"Grand theft Auto," is what I wanted to say. Or "extortion." You know, little, mini-childhood extortion. Tax evasion? Homicide! I could have gone on. But this was like an airport security check. No jokes.
"Oh, probably lying. Or not coming home when they rang the dinner bell. Something that really freaked them out."
She continued, "And who was the main discipliner?"
"I think my Mom would start off and then if her attempts at getting through failed, we would hear, 'just wait 'til your Father gets home.' And then he took over."
"And he spanked you." Yes, that's what I said. Is there an echo in here?
"Yes."
Jeez, this is only slightly less grueling than the Nuremberg trials.
She continued, "And what did you think of that?"
"The spanking? Um, they sure got their point across, whatever it was."
"And how often were you spanked?" she asks.
Oh, right, this one again. "I don't know, let's say once a year? Twice a year?" Honest to God, I cannot remember. I only know that it wasn't every day or once a week. Once a month?
"And how does that make you feel?"
"Now?" I ask incredulously?
Of course I want to say that not a day goes by that I don't think about being spanked 35 years ago. It still resonates deeply and I whimper periodically when I daydream about it. At the supermarket check out or picking up my dry cleaning, I'm fumbling with my change because I'm probably thinking about being spanked.
I answer, "I don't think about it any more. It has had no long term effects that I'm aware of."
"And what do you think about spanking as a disciplinary practice?" Apparently we're not done yet with spanking.
I replied, "I think that effective discipline can happen without spanking and I have proven the point by effectively disciplining my son through the theory of 1-2-3 Magic without spanking him." No spanking. Nada di spanko. Nyet.
And did I mention that I already have a child? This is not theory, we're talking here, lady. Not only would I not spank my child, but I do not, in fact spank my actual living child.
Later that evening over dinner with two girlfriends the conversation went a little like this:
Me, sort of sheepish, "So, were you guys ever spanked as kids?"
Forks go up in the air, eyebrows and chins follow suit. A collective whoop is let out.
Lena, loudly, "Was I ever, are you kidding me? Hell yes, I was spanked."
Candy, pounding her fist, "My father used to take off his belt and lay it on the dinner table every night. Next to me! It was supposed to make my brothers and me behave during dinner."
"Did it work?" I ask.
Candy smirks, "No." Then she smiles the devilish smile of a mischievous eleven year old with four older brothers.
Lena puts her fork down in order to count, "Are you kidding me? I was spanked, I was pinched, I was wrapped in the mouth, I had my ears pulled, my hair pulled."
Candy states, "Oh, I pull my kids hair."
Lena concurs, "Me too, I just give it a good yank. Works like a charm."
Candy says, "And I've spanked, you better believe it. Not alot, and not hard, but I have."
"Me, too." says Lena, "Why do you ask?"
I say with great relief, reaching for my wine, "Because I was under the impression earlier today that I was the only North American Homo-Sapien to be spanked in the last century."
"Ha!" said Candy, taking another swig of wine, "you should have been to my house. My brothers had their mouths washed out with soap!"
"Thank God," I said, grabbing for my glass. I take a big swig. So, it wasn't just me after all. Just as I suspected.
I couldn't wait to go back for my final visit so that I could tell my social worker that mothers all over my neighborhood were yanking their kids around by the hair. And that spanking was not quite dead. Made me feel good inside. I also wondered if I should tell her that I was conceived out of wedlock. Naaaaa. Life's gotta have a little mystery.
