Chapter 9: The Sweep and Punch
When my daughter and her playmates first started their hitting phases as toddlers, I agreed that they should be taught never to hit each other. My father, a Methodist minister and a true pacifist, always said that violence was acceptable “only in self-defense against threats to life.” Toddlers whacking each other doesn’t exactly qualify.
But as my daughter grew older, I found that sometimes when kids inevitably hurt and malign each other as only children can I quietly root for retaliation by the victim. When it comes, I am secretly pleased. I catch a similar expression of “payback is sweet” on other moms’ faces from time to time before they’re quickly covered up with the standard “hitting is bad” mom face.
After a particular incident, my standard speech to “use your words, not your hands” changed forever. My daughter was playing with one of her friends who frequently attacks her. His modus operandi is to go for her eyes, eliciting true anger in me as I think of my child going through life blind. His mother and I were sitting close by when it happened this time.
Mia’s friend had asked for a toy and Mia had very clearly refused his request. Like always, he jabbed two fingers towards her face. But this time Mia did what I now affectionately call the sweep and punch. She swept his hand away, down from her face and then hit him on the arm. She was calm, determined. No tears came from her like they normally do when she gets her eyes poked out. Instead, it was her friend who wailed and wailed.
My jaw dropped. An unexpected chuckle escaped. I glanced at my friend and found a surprised but slight smile on her face as well. I found myself immediately by Mia’s side saying, “It’s fine to protect yourself,” before I doled out the standard speech about trying to use our words instead of our hands.
Mia had been watching the animated movie Mulan, about a Chinese warrior maiden, the day before this incident. Normally I abhor the fighting scenes that are in too many movies made for children. But as I watched my daughter defend herself, the fighting scenes of Mulan flashed through my mind, and for once I actually appreciated them. She asked for the movie again that afternoon, and I happily put it on for her.
Most parents would probably have the opposite reaction, affirmed in their knowledge that children imitate aggressive behavior they see on television. Instead, I sat with my daughter and analyzed Mulan’s moves thinking of how Mia could use them to her advantage.
My father, who never even let us watch Saturday morning cartoons, would be horrified. But now that I’m a mom of a pre-school age female child, I just can’t agree with his stance.
Like most moms, I want my daughter to have a life free of violence. The statistics tell me there’s a fair chance either way. Thoughts of all the horrible things that could happen to her intrude more than I would like, sometimes interrupting the sheer pleasure of how beautiful her tiny body is. Pushing the thoughts away only keeps them at bay temporarily, where they stay hidden somewhere right below my heart.
After the sweep and punch incident, I changed my original viewpoint for good. My new stance goes against my father and what’s considered socially acceptable in parenting these days, but now I tell Mia, “If you can, back away and use your words. But if you can’t, then it’s o.k. to defend yourself” – a lesson I hope she takes into her adolescence and womanhood.
Top Tip #9
When markers go dry, throw out the marker part and save the caps. When you lose a cap, which inevitably happens, voila - you have an extra cap! Warning . . . this will not work if you're neurotic about the cap color matching the marker color. But if you're not, it makes your life just that much easier!