The sweet, sweet life of Emily

Last week Emily took swimming lessons here in Belmond. She was absolutely fearless about the pool, but sweet Amy, her instructor, made her a little nervous. I guess that means that I don't have to worry about her going to a stranger offering candy, but if a swimming pool came up to her on the sidewalk? She'd go with it in a second!

I'm not sure what Amy is promising Emily here, but whatever it was, it worked.

Soon Emily was jumping in like a pro. She even touched the bottom of the pool, her face completely under the water.

The first day Em didn't want me to leave so Eric, in his shirt and tie from work, Claudia, and I all stood by the side of the pool. On day two our friend Megan was visiting so we (no Eric this day) walked to the far end of the pool and sat.

The weather this week has been a hell-like 90-some degrees, so on day three I brought out the big guns. I told her if she let me go sit in air conditioning for her half hour lesson I would get her some chocolate. She went for it. Maybe I should watch out for the strangers with candy after all.

In the end, I realized that I had paid big money for my daughter to take private swimming lessons (group ones aren't offered here until the kids are out of kindergarten) which she loves, and then I told her I would give her chocolate if she went. What in the hell has this world come to? I can tell you right now that my mother would NEVER have bribed me to do something fun. "Hey honey, if you let me take you to Chuck E. Cheese's I'll buy you a car."

I think this family has swung too far to the "nurturing" side of parenting. Tonight there will be spankings, just because.

Which actually makes me think of something funny. We don't actually spank in our house and we tell Emily regularly that we don't hit in our family, mostly when she has just hit Claudia. And while we do this because hitting to tell your kids that hitting is wrong just seems stupid and because Eric seems all the child-hitting and-spirit breaking he needs to at work, I have noticed that Emily has no fear of us. We do the time out thing here and while Emily isn't crazy about sitting on the stairs, I would doubt that the fear of having to do so keeps her from doing anything.

I'm not saying that I want my kids to be scared of me, I want them to know that I would protect them and that home is a safe, loving place to be, but it would be nice to be able to threaten her with a punishment and have her even pause slightly before continuing what she was doing.

Just watch, in 25 years it will have all swung the other way. This generation will think that their parents were too easy going and our kids will be using stocks and pillories on thier kids.

And then I can sit there and say things like, "Kids these days are so ill behaved, what they need is a swift trip to the stairs."