Stepmother wanted to be a 1950s-style husband. She wore burgundy sweater-vests over pale yellow button-down oxfords, and jeans or polyester slacks that hugged her fat stomach. Her small feet were always in loafers or sneakers, never heels. When Stepmother went to work she wore skirted business suits under duress, and she always wore the same small, gold hoop earrings. Her hair was short and dark brown, parted on the side. Everyone in the family had the same haircut: Mother, Girl, Brother, Stepmother. Only Girl hated it. Girl wanted long hair and ponytails, but she wasn’t allowed to grow it until third grade, or until she stopped crying when Stepmother combed it, whichever came first.
Stepmother often went to the library to find home repair manuals. She liked to fix things. She got a book on how to patch concrete and repaired the basement wall, saving them five thousand dollars. But she must have missed something, because by the time Girl was twenty, the house had slowly collapsed inward, so that the light switch plate in Girl’s old bedroom was half-buried behind the door frame.
Once, Stepmother was repairing a rusted-out hole in her Datsun station wagon. Girl stood nearby, watching and chewing gum.
“Girl, give me your gum,” Stepmother said. Girl pulled her gum out of her mouth with her thumb and forefinger and handed the wad to Stepmother. Stepmother balled it up and used it as filler for the hole in the car, painting over it with touch-up paint.
“Hey! That’s my gum!” Girl protested, poking the repair with her finger.
“Look what you did! You dented it! Now I have to do the whole thing over again. Do you have any more gum?” Stepmother asked.
notes from the fourth wall
10 steps to raising children who behave properly
1. It is good if you can procure children who are already slightly damaged by other people, say, a father who abandoned them or a parent who has untreated mental illness or alcoholism. In our experience, this will cut their learning time by half.
2. Yell often and randomly. This is so obvious that it almost doesn’t merit writing down. Keep in mind that all yelling is not created equal. For example, constant yelling can be confused with hearing loss, and is therefore ignored. To be truly scary, the yell needs a narrowing of eyes to provide an edge of meanness. Fun words to yell: loser, wimp, pussy, or WhatTheFuckIsWrongWithYou. Yelling without possibility of following up with physical harm is all foam and no latte, which leads us to #3 …
3. Corporal punishment. This is a no-brainer, but for those of you who are faint of heart, please keep in mind that one need not draw blood or leave a mark to provide psychological damage. Spanking hard enough to sting will suffice, particularly if it is carried out in a basement or other scary place. Best practices include changing up the requirements for spanking/hitting/et cetera so that the children never know what will result in physical punishment. Further information on this technique can be found in several popular dog-training manuals under intermittent negative reinforcement. Think of yourself as a slot machine that randomly punches the player.
4. Never underestimate the power of negativity. If you don’t have the physical stamina required for #3, it can be just as effective to ensure that the child knows they are a failure, preferably in everything. All-pro parents know that there is always one good child and one bad child, so it’s not hard to find reasons to draw everyone’s attention to the loser child’s errors. If done properly, one only needs to throw a handful of criticism in the direction of the good child to scare them into submission. The good child knows that if they cross over into bad-child territory there is no redemption. Helpful phrases: it is all your fault, you can’t do anything right, I should have known you’d screw this up, etc.
5. Privacy is for the weak. While some advanced parents actually remove doors from bedrooms, we have found that walking in on naked teenagers works just as well, especially if you pause and linger for conversation. Long conversation. With roving eyes. Also effective is the Stand Silently and Stare While Scratching Your Own Butt technique.
6. Blow your nose at the dinner table, open the Kleenex, and look at it. Manners, like all rules, are just for children. “Do as I say, not as I do” sounds better than “we don’t hit people in this family unless I am the one doing the hitting.”
7. Do not, under any circumstances, defend your children from bullies at school. They might get the idea that bullying is not an effective behavior management technique. Better yet, make sure they know that if they stand up for themselves, they will be punished even more once they get home.
8. Don’t forget to take everything personally. We all know that everything children do is just to spite their parents: hair styles, clothing, music. They need to consider your feelings in every decision they make, because you really do know better than they do. If they can anticipate your judgment, they will self-correct before disaster strikes.
9. If you have not yet made fun of your children, please put this book down now and do so immediately. Scorn, ridicule, tease. It teaches them to have a thicker skin and also provides endless hours of pure enjoyment.
10. In all of your behavior
