Friday, January 19, 2007

In light of California's new "anti-spanking" bill...

Here are a list of other things I would never do with my cat:

Breastfeed
Make it wear a diaper
Push it in a stroller
Take it to the park
Take it out for lunch
Encourage it to sleep at night
Let it eat off of the dining room table
Read it bedtime stories
Let it eat from my spoon
Play ring-around-the-rosie
Teach it it's wrong to kill someone for fun
Make it different meals, several times each day
Invite it's friends over to play
Call my mom to tell her about something adorable the cat did
Make it wear clothes
Take it to concerts, museums, the county fair and the beach
Trick-or-Treat
Apply temporary tattoos
Give it it's own bedroom

Perhaps this (along with all the other glaring omissions on my pet parenting list) makes me a terrible cat owner. But trust me, I love my cats. I even kinda like my dog.

And I'm not particularly pro-spanking. Son #2 was spanked, once. Sons #3 and 4 probably got spanked, I guess, along the way, although I don't actually remember any specific incidents. Son #1 could have used a lot more spanking than he got, but really it just was not my way of raising him.

And, yes, I have seen people whale on their kids in a way that seemed abusive, or at the very least ineffective.

The point is, people are not cats. We have different ways of dealing with our children than our pets. And people who don't have children shouldn't tell me how to parent, any more than I should tell you how to raise your bird.

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