Harsh Punishment or Outstanding Parenting?

 Sunday night while I was watching a current affairs program, I noticed a little story about 2 little boys who were getting some pretty harsh punishment from ruining the family bath tub. So I searched for the story and found it to be true and a little part of me...oh who am I kidding...all of me thought it was outstanding parenting.

I could tell you the story but I will let the obviously ropeable parent’s eBay commercial do the talking.


We are selling 8 Beyblades, 2 of them light up. As you can tell they are not happy about this! They have been using their bathtub as a “battle arena” and Beyblades + Bathtub = Destruction!!! With the metal ones they managed to scrape the enamel off the tub, take a chunk of tub out and break off the soap holder. SO if you “win” this auction DON’T play with in a bathtub!!! We have received a quote of $500.00 to replace the tub, some tiles, and soap holder + labour of course! They had approximately $125.67 in their piggy banks that will be going to toward the cost. We will use the profit from this auction towards the balance and then it is onto other toys!


Good Luck bidding!!


PayPal only.


 Firstly, for those like me who have no idea what Bayblades are, they are like spinning tops made out of metal that fight each other, they are the atomic bomb of spinning tops and that bathtub was Hiroshima. Quite frankly they sound dangerous, what ever happened to Cowboys and Indians with water pistols in the backyard for boyhood war games....but I digress.
 Now since the story aired on TV, the ad has been taken down. The last bid was for $10k, probably a fake but I suspect it was the world wide attention it received that caused the parents to remove it. Which compounds my belief that you don’t put anything on the internet until you have gone for a walk or slept on it - it was kind of stupid to put their kids’ photos up and humiliate them for the entire world to see. But now that it is out there, what do you think of the punishment? Me? Fabulous. It's tough love and it will teach those little boys that there are consequences to their actions.
 You crash into another car, you pay for it. You borrow a friend's dress and stain it, you pay for it. You steal a girl’s husband...you get lumped with her left-overs and eventually you’ll be miserable too and paying for it....
 Now for those who think it too harsh because of their age, take another look at the photo.

 I’m not a parent but I think the crying one looks old enough to logically prevent destroying tiles and a soap holder and ripping a chunk out of the bathtub. In fact he even looks like he might be faking it...we’ve all been there in an effort to show our remorse to stop the wooden spoon or worse. But the stoic little one on the right, he has that terrified stare of a younger brother caught up in more trouble than he can possibly imagine. That or he’s thinking ‘Sell my Beyblades now-kill you in your sleep later.”
 But I have to admit when I first saw the photo I laughed. Is that wrong? Have I turned into mean Miss Hannigan out of Orphan Annie delighting in children’s misery, or have I just remembered my own childhood punishments for similar incidents and realised that they will eventually get over it; they won’t be scarred for life and will most probably laugh about it when they are older.
 However others are not sharing my view of teaching them a lesson they will never forget, I found this re-worked version of the same ad from an angry mother.


We are selling 8 Beyblades, 2 of them light up. As you can tell they are not happy about this, but I’m getting rather giggly at posting my crying children on the internet to show what a bad-ass parent I am. They have been using their bathtub as a “battle arena”, which I may have noticed if I paid any actual attention to what my kids did when the played in the bathroom, but I was too busy with my own awesomeness to know. Oh, and Beyblades + Bathtub = Destruction!!! With the metal ones they managed to scrape the enamel off the tub, take a chunk of tub out and break off the soap holder--which was a really expensive soap holder, it was made of crystalized kid tears. SO if you “win” this auction DON’T play with in a bathtub!!! Or at the very least, pay more attention to your kids than I obviously do! We have recieved a quote of $500.00 to replace the tub, some tiles, and soap holder + labor of course! No way could I go to a local hardware store and purchase a bathtub enamel repair kit and some grout and a new soap container for less than $100. No way. They had approxamently $125.67 in their piggy banks that will be going to toward the cost. We will use the profit from this auction towards the balance and then it is onto other toys! Other toys that had nothing to do with the destruction, but I can’t be bothered with details like that. Good Luck bidding!!! Paypal only. Now I’m off to kick a puppy.


 Ok, so maybe after that I’ve revised my opinion a little...Maybe they should have just taken the toys off them and quietly given them to charity and then perhaps sprayed them clean daily with the hose in the backyard until the bath was fixed......WHAT???? Should I shut up now?

We’re fickle with who deserves our thanks.

 Is it just me, or are there less pleases and thank yous going around these days? I was in a cafe recently and noticed a woman rudely barking orders at the sandwich hand. She requested every condiment ever conceived, without once saying please. Then, on receiving her beautifully customised baguette, she walked away without saying thanks. I forgave her for her rudeness, concluding she must have been raised by wolves, but decided to spend a few days being actively aware of social graces.

 The upshot? I witnessed a friend give a cabbie directions without saying please; I held open the door of a department store and five people whizzed past without acknowledging my courtesy; and I sat on a bus and watched as passengers departed without even a smile or a nod to the driver.

 I was very disappointed by what I’d seen. At the last child care centre I worked at, they had a cleaner, and whenever the cleaner came to empty the office bin and clean up, as usual, I greeted and thanked him. But then I noticed not many other people paid him any attention. I questioned the supervisor about it and she said she didn’t see the need to thank him because “it’s his job”.

 Aha! Somewhere along the line, society has decided that if someone is paid to help, we can do away with kindness. But here’s what I think: that’s rubbish. Manners shouldn’t be conditional – they should be genuine expressions of gratitude. We’re very fickle with who deserves our appreciation; we’re quick to thank the doctor who cures our illness or the accountant who sorts our tax return, despite the fact both will charge us accordingly. So why are we less inclined to thank the bus driver who gets us safely to our destination or the cleaner who keeps the workplace toilet sparkling?

 Forget the insincerity that often comes with social etiquette, and let’s return to heartfelt kindness. We can be quick to criticize people in the service industry for their lack of charm, but let’s take a look at the way we treat them. The next time a waiter clears your table or a taxi driver lugs your suitcase from the boot, thank them, but make sure you truly mean it.

 When we were kids, manners were just the annoying habits our parents forced on us that we often dismissed. But they should be meaningful. I won’t go all Oprah on you, but imagine the difference we could make in each other’s lives by just sharing something as simple as kind appreciation.

 OK, maybe I did go a bit Oprah on you.

There’s one piece of advice that’s actually sunk in.

Like many mothers, my mum is always forthcoming with advice. And like most loud-mouthed, ‘know-it-all’ daughters, I usually inform her I’m more than capable of running my own life, thank you very much. That is, until I skulk back to her for sympathy when another tattooed schmuck breaks my heart.

 But along with “Sit with your legs together” and “Don’t eat so fast”, one piece of advice that’s actually sunk in is: “Always keep the receipt.” If you’ve ever stood at a shop counter red-faced, trying to explain to an unsympathetic sales assistant that you were sure your mother was going to love a breadmaker for her birthday, and the receipt was in the bag, but the dog must have eaten it, then you know what I’m talking about.

 What is it about store returns that transforms a sales assistant from friendlier than Oprah to putting 20^th-century dictators to shame? It’s a bit like being seduced by a con man. At first you’re beguiled by the smiles and reassuring “Why don’t you buy it and try it on at home. If you change your mind, you can bring it back.” Then when you return the next day, having decided you were right all along, the cheery girl who insisted you looked a million dollars in a faux fur poncho has morphed into Cruella De Vil.

 She picks up the garment and inspects it with more eye for detail than the explosives inspectors at border control. Then she shakes her head, pulling off microscopic flecks of lint with her disapproving eye, all but suggesting you went mud wrestling in it. That’s followed by a scowl as she says she needs to consult the manager, leaving you awkwardly hanging at the counter with a queue of disgruntled shoppers annoyed that you’re holding them up.

 The humiliation continues when the manager comes to the counter and both staff members investigate the item for so long, they may as well jump on the PA system and welcome everyone to gather around Ladies Apparel to witness the lying, cheating and deceitful criminal...I mean, customer.

 Experience that just once and, let me tell you, you learn to hold on to your receipts with the same vigilance as you do your passport or children. In protest to the negativity around ‘returns’, when my friend was a sales assistant in an up-market clothes boutique, she went to the other extreme. She happily accepted every item with a smile. Sometimes she didn’t even open the bag; she just took the customer’s word for it. She strove to be the nicest, friendliest refunder the store had ever seen.

 Sadly, her groundbreaking willingness and aptitude at returning goods led to a very short-lived career in retail. And now comes my own piece of clever advice: When you choose to excel at something at work, make sure it doesn’t chip into the company’s profit margin.

The ex contract.

 If you had to choose between the following two scenarios, which would you prefer?You're walking down the street with someone you're dating and you see your ex-boyfriend or girlfriend approaching. Now, here's the choice:

a) Your ex looks better than they ever did. They're fit, clear-eyed, astonishingly well-dressed and on the arm of someone gorgeous, or:

b) Your ex is a train-wreck; swollen, dirty, drunk, they smell like cheap ham, have dandruff in their eyebrows and might even be limping. Oh, and they're hanging with Geoffrey Edelsten. Tough call, eh? ...

 Plenty of people pay lip service to being happy if their old flame's doing well and moving on with their life, but thriving? Excelling? Doing better than ever? "What was I?" you think, "A friggin' anchor around your neck? And now you're setting sail for the Bahamas?"

 For this reason, I'd say there are also plenty of people who've felt a ripple of pessimistic delight when they see their ex (especially one who's dumped them) has gained weight, a facial tick or police record since your bust-up. "Serves you right, you missed your chance at bliss with this," you say to yourself. More than likely, however, your choice of (a) or (b) depends on the time you've been separated and who did the leaving.

 If you've been rejected, you might like to see your ex homeless and hurting but as you, too, move on, hopefully you'll wish them the best and rejoice in their successes. It also reflects well on you if your ex has got it going on: there's a sense of pride in being able to say "I used to date that attractive/well-regarded/good-hearted person."

 However, as years go by, even if you can't spout superlatives about your old lover, there's still a bunch of stuff we'd prefer never to hear attached to their name. Like hijacking a commercial aircraft, having sexual relations outside their species or screaming on Deal or No Deal. The sad truth is, even if you're not shagging someone any more, they can still taint you by association, so there's some rules that should be adhered to.

 This is the "The Ex-Contract" and some of the heads of agreement are:

Stay in shape: It's embarrassing when you see your high school girlfriend and she looks as if she ate the rest of her year 12 class.

Age well: Same goes for your ex-boyfriend who appears 25 years older than you, is grey haired, triple-chinned, with more burst capillaries than an Anzac Day march.

Don't get arrested for sex offences: Can you imagine picking up the paper and realising you used to swap spit with a rapist, kiddie-fiddler or Joel Monaghan?

Don't appear on a reality TV show: Spare a thought for the ex-boyfriends of Joanne from MasterChef.

Don't date Geoffrey Edelsten or Layne Beachley: Sure both are married, but you get what I mean. It's like when Seinfeld found out his new girlfriend had dated Newman and been dumped by him. Some things you just can't get past.

Ditch the pics: Keep your photo albums, sure, but if you've got a nest of frames containing your ex, you're in breach of the contract. And don't send your ex's parents Christmas cards. Yeesh.

Don't talk publicly about your ex: Especially in magazine interviews, particularly if you've broken any of the above rules.

 Of course, there's another school of thought about this and it's that every new wickedness, mental breakdown, bankruptcy, assault charge, drunken outburst and disease you hear your ex has contracted serves to confirm you dodged a massive bullet. Whatever the reason for your break-up, no matter who left who and why, you're actually about 50 times better off without them and their issues. So smile. Just don't sell the story to Woman's Day.