Ann Romney has been front and center at the Republican National Committee's convention in Tampa this week with a mission: to talk up Mitt Romney the "husband" and Mitt Romney the "father" to humanize the candidate. But after Ann's Stepford Wife-style speech about motherhood the other day, she's continued to dig a hole for the former Massachusetts governor. The latest bit of questionable parenting involves the age-old spanking debate.
No surprise the Romneys are spankers. They seem like old school parents all the way. But it's the way Ann practically bragged about her husband "whacking" their five sons' "bums" that really gets me.
Talking about the time Mitt spent on the road doing business while she was at home with the kids, Ann related how her husband would comfort her over the phone:
It's OK, I'll be home soon, and I'll do whatever whacking I need to do with whatever bum needs whacking. Because they were something else.
Needless to say this bothers me because I'm not the spanking sort. I have always believed -- and science stands behind me -- that corporal punishment confuses kids. With words we teach them "don't hit," but a whack on the bum, as the Romneys call it, teaches them with actions that hitting is A-OK. And don't they say that actions speak louder than words?
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But what Ann Romney unwittingly relates in what she seems to think was a humorous anecdote (and to be fair, the crowd of GOP faithfuls provided her the yuks she was looking for) is that her husband is a "react now, ask questions later" type of guy. He hears his kids are misbehaving, and he automatically leaps to "let me beat their little asses." But whatever happened to studying the behaviors? Finding out what they did wrong and why?
Disciplining our kids shouldn't simply be about punishment. It's about correcting the behaviors so they don't happen again. In that sense, the punishment really needs to fit the crime.
This applies to much more than spanking. If you take your kid's Xbox away because they throw a fit when they're told it's time to turn off the game console, the punishment fits the crime. There's cause and effect, and a 5-year-old can see the correlation.
Come home five days later and beat your kid's butt for not setting the table, on the other hand, and you have to wonder what the heck you think they're going to learn.
Check out Ann Romney talking about her husband:
How do you make the punishment fit the crime so to speak?
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Comments 93
You know what "really gets me"? Idiot parents who think their special snowflakes shouldn't be disciplined. And idiot parents who can't tell the difference between discipline and abuse. You, "author", appear to be in those categories. Am I surprised someone who would write this drivel would be?
Not at all.
And let the Romney bashing begin yet again today.
What is it you hope to accomplish, Jeanne Sager, by personally vilifying Ann Romney?
Yes, we can see how the corporal punishment really backfired. 5 full-grown sons, not one of them an addict, violent criminal, or abuser. All of them married, a father, and dedicated to their family. All of them upstanding citizens. Boy, if that ain't proof that one shouldn't "beat their little asses", I don't know what is.
I love how we can measure how scared the Liberals are, by how petty they get about shit that doesn't matter. Can we re-visit Shamus's white-knuckle ride to Canada, and how Mitt allegedly cut some dude's hair in high school, too?
We get it. You don't like her. Stop shoving it down everyone's throats.
As to the topic - I took that whole thing as more "supportive husband" than "abusive father", number one. He's traveling, Mom's home with 5 kids and is at the end of her rope and he says to her "just hold on and I'll take care of it when I get home." Do you really, honestly believe that the man walked in the door, dropped his luggage and immediately set about thrashing his chidlren five days later?
Number two - I got swatted. Nearly everyone I know got swatted. The "special snowflakes should never be disciplined" line of parental thinking is a new thing brought about by parents our age. Older parents did it, and you KNOW I'm not talking about flat out abuse so DON'T even twist it that way. I'm talking a swat on the butt and being sent to your room. I'm nearly 40 years old and I can remember pushing my mother's buttons to the point that she would chase me down the hall with a wooden spoon in her hand, swinging it under the bed where I was hiding while I told her that I would call the Child Abuse Hotline. Her retort was always something akin to "then get out here so that I can give you something to tell them!" We laugh, HARD, about these things now and I can tell you with absolute certainty, I deserved every. little. bit. that she successfully doled out.
Get off your high horse, Jeanne.
The special snowflakes that never got whacked are now the brats running around, bullying everyone because the worst thing that will even happen to them is a time out in their room with their ipod, cell phone and tv.
I can't believe you took "swatting on the bum" and turned it into "let me beat their asses". Also to Allison above. How do you know theywere small children when they got a whack on the bum? I doubt most people are spanking their 2 year old.