A Debt To My Son

The first ass whuppin’ I can remember was when I was about 4–5 years old. We were finalizing the process of moving into a new apartment and were making the trek up the elevator and down the hall and toward the place we would call home for the next couple of years.

I remember needing to use the bathroom and feeling like my tiny little bladder would burst. I remember my father finally opening the door to the empty place and me scurrying into the bathroom that was just inside the apartment’s door. I remember relieving myself in the toilet and getting piss all over the floor.

And I clearly remember that’s what infuriated my father.

Out of nowhere he grabs a toy whiffle bat and smacks me on the ass with it a half dozen times for my crime of poorly aiming my little 5-year-old dick into the toilet, then tells me to go lay down.

To him, it probably was an insignificant event that he probably wouldn’t even remember if he were alive.

But to me, it’s a mental scar that I clearly can’t forget and a valid trauma amplified by my lack in size and age and overall understanding. I was just a freaking kid. And to me, and most other children, he was a giant of a man with a booming voice and temper that single-handedly altered the course of my life and how I deal with conflict.

For all I know, it probably wasn’t the first time he spanked me, but it definitely wasn’t the last. Hell, the word “spank” doesn’t seem big enough to capture the fuckedupness of all the times he’s ever beat my ass. To this day, I vividly recall getting whipped with a belt, full-force, while naked, for some of the most trivial shit. And though some people, even people in my family, may say I’m exaggerating my experience, I concede but also defend my point of view all at once by stressing the fact that the reality of a kid experiencing it as it happens is quite different than that of the person swinging the belt.

I wasn’t a bad kid. Curious perhaps. But nothing I did seemed to fit the punishments I received. And though that was a significant portion of what fucked me up later in life, it wasn’t just the beatings. It was his disciplinarian-style of keeping us kids in check and his admission that he wanted us to “fear him.” And God knows we did.

But hey, I came out alright, right?

I’m a former active duty Marine. I graduated from college. I own a home. I have a great job. Fuck — I’m doing pretty awesome at this “American Dream” shit. My dad kicking my ass worked out after all!

Valid or not, anyone that has ever grown up in a household where the belt kept them in line has always justified it with their productivity and personal wealth in materialistic bullshit. And therefore, we carry on the traditions of these ways like heirlooms because we want our own children to grow up squeaky clean too.

Still. I told myself even before I became a dad that I wouldn’t do this to my kids. And as other parents might know, shit always happens differently the moment your offspring does some shit that truly pisses you the fuck off. Despite the sense of reason and the variety of options you give your kids to do the right thing, on occasion, they become hellbent on trying their luck. So out of a matter of frustration and feeling like there is no other way to get your damn point across — you resort to the belt. At least I did.

My youngest son tends to be hard-headed. I’m not sure where this bullish personality comes from, but he consistently does the opposite of what he is told. Even though I said I would never spank my kids before I was a dad, nearly 20 years of fatherhood experience brought me to the point of concluding that every so often, kids need their ass kicked. And my son’s tendency to disobey only reinforced that realization.

But even though he was a knucklehead, I managed to get him back on the right path well before ever having to get a belt. Usually raising my voice was enough to scare him straight. And rarely, I would have to go to the point of popping him on his ass. Of those times, I can literally count on one hand when I’ve whupped his little ass, which was by my estimation, more bark than bite –which is me ironically forgetting my own assertion that his perspective was likely different than mine.

This most recent time had been different though.

What started as me reinforcing his mother’s demands to eat fruits in place of the candy he wanted, ended in an angry beating that left me reconsidering how I punish my son in the future. On the surface, I wanted him to eat the right things to make sure his health was in order, but deep down inside, what really set me off was the fact that my threats and raised voice didn’t do a gawd damn thing to make him do what I told him to do.

After giving him a specified amount of time and even warning him that I would beat his little ass, he still refused to do as he was told. And it pissed me off more than anything else he could have done. Not only did I feel he was challenging me, but it defied logic since he loved fruit in almost any other form. How many kids you know enjoy smoothies? Probably not many. But he did. Yet, here he is telling me he doesn’t like fruit as if I didn’t just see him devour strawberries the other day.

At this point, I knew I had to follow up his inaction with consequences…or else every single warning and threat I made in the future would hold no weight. Besides, at this point, he was asking for it…and in my eyes, he deserved it, so I whipped his little ass as promised, but instead of the ass whuppin’ finally convincing him it was in his best interest to eat the damn fruit, he doubled-down and refused again. It was at this point where I lost a sense of myself and almost became a whole other ass person.

I dragged him up the stairs and was merciless in my rage. This time, instead of spanking him out of necessity, I acted out of boiled over anger that was entirely excessive. I knew it was over-the-top because after I was done and while he was fearfully shoveling pieces of fruit in his mouth — I flashed back to the times my father kicked my ass and how I felt as a little boy almost seeing myself from my dad’s perspective. The only difference is I immediately felt horrible. And the only reason I could feel shitty about it was because I was fortunate or unfortunate enough to have experienced what my son felt myself.

I got what I wanted — true. He ate the fruit. But it wasn’t the way I wanted it to play out.

I didn’t want his trust of me to come at an expense. I didn’t want his fear of me to be the determining factor. I didn’t want to beat him into submission as if he was some mule that was too stubborn to pull its load. I simply wanted my son to respect me. But instead, I simply allowed my ego and twisted desire to create an honest human being that I could be proud of override my compassion for my own damn flesh and blood.

And that’s when it all kind of hit me. How could I hurt something I love? Even just a little…even if I believed it’s for his own good? It just didn’t make sense.

While I have never been as extreme with any of my kids as my dad had been with me, I allowed the worst memories of my father to become me that one time. But all it takes is one time for the experience to be everlasting and hurtful and life-changing. It’s the reason I couldn’t even sleep the night after it all went down. I was afraid. Had I become what I’ve tried for so long to avoid?

This is how violent cycles are passed on. They don’t happen by choice. They are subconscious things we try to suppress our entire lives that wait for the right moment to surface. Then when they do, they take over who we are. And I, so so badly, didn’t want that.

Thinking on how I can stop this, I referred to my younger self and realized that I what I needed to do was what I wanted my father to do all those years ago: apologize. So in the warmth and comfort of my living room, I sat my son down on the couch and explained to him where I went wrong, what I had been through, why I was extremely sorry for what I did. With tears in my eyes, I promised I would never put my hands on him again and then made him promise he would never do the same to his children.

He did.

I wondered but didn’t ask if he forgave me. I felt it would be selfish of me to ask — after all, the apology was about his feelings — not mine. But I hope that the answer to the question I internalized was hidden somewhere in the toothy smile he had across his handsome face.