Daughter and I were riding the car last week, alone. I was whinging about something---can't even remember what. It doesn't matter. An annoying thing happened that was probably my fault. So I did what I always do in an effort to model excellent life skilz for my kids. I blamed Daughter. We were laughing and joking around. I said, "Ugh, so annoying! I blame you!" And as I said that, as we were laughing, I slapped the air over her thigh. At the same time I said, "And I spank you!" We laughed and then stopped laughing. There were about 3 seconds of silence.

My children have never been spanked. Oh, that is not true. When Daughter was two years old Brother was three. Anyone who has worked with toddlers understands that biting is the worst thing a toddler can do, because biting has SO much power, is so hideously self reinforcing and affective. You simply can not allow such a powerful and unthinking force loose in the world because it guarantees a life of escalating chaos and pain. The first time Daughter bit, I grabbed her tender fat little hand and popped it hard enough to sting---very much on purpose. I looked her straight in her eyes and sternly said, "We do not bite." She never bit again. That is the one and only true punishment of either child's life, as far as I can remember. Its the exception to the rule. We do not spank. We do not believe in punishment. We don't even yell around here. We don't participate in manipulative bullshit. We are a fifth level vegan pacifist family, or we aim to be anyway. We tell the truth. We communicate.

Maybe that's why the humor evaporated and silence settled over us after fake-spanking. It felt very wrong. Even though we were both clear that I was joking. I said, "That felt wrong." And Daughter said, "It did. I flinched and I felt spanked." Then I scooped up and cupped the air over her thigh with both hands. Yes, I was driving, but this was an emergency. And I kissed the air in my hands a thousand times and said, "I'm so sorry! I don't mean it. It is not your fault and you are not punished." And we laughed again and got on down the road. But from that moment to this one, I've thought about it.

Parenting matters. Violence is real and it doesn't take much.