Showing Your Butt

AMEN! AMEN! AMEN! to this blog posting!!!

I have seen the posts floating around and being shared and praised on Facebook and I cringe every time I do.  My heart hurts every time I see them.  My stomach turns and I want to wage a comment war.  I am not a perfect parent, but I disagree with the public “shame shots” as a punishment for kids (or anyone for that matter).

A couple years ago I was going into a store as a friend of mine and her daughter were coming out.  Mom was storming.  Daughter was resisting.  There wasn’t much chit chat as we ran into one another, but she did mention that they were leaving the store without what they came for because her daughter was “not going to show her butt” so they were headed home.

I fell in love with that phrase.  Think about it.  Our butts are something we don’t typically want the rest of the world to see.  (I know, I know…some people don’t mind…but don’t distract me with that here!)  It’s usually only those closest to us who see “that side” of us.  We don’t walk into the grocery store and show our butts.  We don’t get up in the middle of a movie at the theater and show our butts.  We keep them (mostly) covered and only a select few, if not just one, actually ever sees our butts.

So when speaking figuratively, our “bad sides” are our butts.  We don’t share those with everyone and we don’t want the world to see them.  We behave differently in public than we do in private.  We keep our bad moments to ourselves.  Whether that’s a sad time, or an angry moment, or a shameful act.  For the most part, most of us try our best to keep our BUTTS private.

So why would we show our kids’ butts to the world?  There are two aspects to this that I completely disagree with.  First of all, when we post SHAME SHOTS of our kids online, we are glorifying what they have done.  Even if we don’t intend to, it’s what’s happening.  When I post a great new shot of my daughter doing a dance trick, or one of my son showing his muscles, it’s only a matter of minutes before they are asking me how many likes they have.  Do parents not see that a teen, even in a shame shot, is going to revel in the glory of getting hundred, or thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of likes and/or shares???  That embarrassment and shame that is intended will last all of but three or four seconds.  And I’m taking a complete shot in the dark here, but I also imagine that many of these kids are going to figure out REALLY quickly that they LIKE getting that many LIKES and that there are LOTS of “showing your butt” ways they can accomplish that.

Secondly, the whole idea of public shaming and humiliation is just sickening to me.  If you’ve ever even just felt the humiliation of even realizing your zipper is unzipped–whether or not anyone else even noticed–then you should know that public humiliation is just awful.  And causing that kind of humiliation to anyone, but especially to your own child, is just wrong.  Hurtful.  Devastating. And…SHAMEFUL.

I’ll say it again.  I am not a perfect parent.  Far from it on most days.  But one thing I do know is that showing your butt, or your kid’s butt, to the world is not a good, or effective, way to change poor behavior.  I’ve yelled at my kids.  I’ve jumped to conclusions about their behavior and been wrong.  I’ve seen them do things that they shouldn’t and that I hope they’ll never do again.  But it’s my job as their parent to help them learn right from wrong.  And destroying their heart, their self-esteem, their self-worth in order to do that is NOT okay.  There are many more ways to help your child learn right from wrong…and choosing a more private, loving, kind, nurturing way is definitely going to not only be more effective, but it’s also going to help you maintain a trusting, loving relationship with them.

(I do have to confess I have posted a picture of my kids in their “Get Along” shirt.  It was NOT  a photo when they were actually not getting along.  They posed for the picture.  Their grimaces were staged.  But I’m still rethinking it.)