The Boy Just Inside the Door
by Sue Stigleman • Asheville, NC

I walked through the door of the doctor's office, there to admit that I need surgery to repair the
damages of childbirth 7 years ago. A boy, about 2, stood in front of the door, thinking of making an escape. "Oh, a child!" I thought and leaned over, looked him in the eye, and said something silly to him. Over his shoulder, I saw three women looking at me, unsmiling. I rose abruptly and walked away from the child. I laid my head on the back of the uncomfortable chair and tried to put myself to sleep.

I heard keys rattle and thought "Oh good, someone's going to play with him." But the woman apparently held the keys in her hand as her arm lay on the arm of the chair. (I was sitting, on purpose, with my back to them.) Instead of playing, the woman held the keys dangling there at the child's eye height, and told him over and over, "Don't touch," "Stay away," "You can't have the keys." Inside, I was screaming, "If he can't have them, put them away!" Finally, one of the women was called back into the examining area and the other 2 women took the boy outside, to my great relief.

A few days later, I realized I had been waiting for the child to be spanked. I was spanked by my mother and beaten by my father. My father, in a rage, would rip off his belt, grab the nearest child, and flail away, the child walking in a vain circle around and around him. After the first burst of anger, he would yell "Shut up and stand still!" and the beating would continue until we stood still and did not cry. It was never talked about afterward.

I have finely developed antennae for impending spankings. My discomfort is a barometer for the spanking potential in a situation. I knew, without knowing how I knew at the time, that if I continued talking to that small boy in the doorway, I was endangering him. Upon reflection, I can name several specific things that put me on spanking alert. The women sat apart from each other in a large triangle. They sprawled back in the chairs, instead of forward toward the child, or even upright. They didn't smile, that I saw, at him, at me, or at each other. They didn't play with the boy. They talked at him instead of with him. The talk was all "do this," "don't do that," "come here," "don't go there." Nothing silly, playful or fun.

I am a Quaker. I've never spanked my son. Spanking isn’t used at Quaker meetings. Spanking was not used at my son's preschool nor his school. I shop at the food coop. I don't go to the mall, where toddlers are confined in strollers and then spanked or slapped for their natural and understandable restlessness.

When I see children being spanked, I want to run in and yell, "Stop it, stop it, stop it!" Which is, of course, exactly what is being yelled at the child through the spanking. Adding more "stop it" energy feels like it would be throwing gasoline on the fire.

A woman on an Internet parenting group told a story about being beaten in a store by her father, one of an uncountable number of beatings in her childhood. A woman walked up, said, "This isn't right," and walked away. The father didn't stop; in fact he beat harder because he had been challenged. But the girl heard it, and from then on, through the rest of her childhood and many more beatings, she knew "This isn't right." When she became a parent, she didn't beat her children.

There in the waiting room, I wanted to step in and fix the women and child, to show them, "Look, here's how you can entertain a child in a waiting room. And for heaven's sake, there are three of you! You can even trade off and give each other time to rest!"

Later, wondering what I could have done differently, I realized that I could have simply (though not easily) sat and watched them, with compassion. I could be present to them, and to my own discomfort, instead of looking at the only two magazines available and then putting my head down to try to sleep. Perhaps out of that looking, I might have seen some opening to talk to the women, or play with the boy a little. If I am present and let myself see and hear, and, especially, remember to breathe, I may be able to see a way to step gently into the situation. Even if I don't, for me to witness is a form of prayer for the child and for the parent.

I begin to see the possibility of stepping out of my quiet, librarian, Quaker, non-violent world and being present–to children in danger of being spanked, to parents struggling with their anger and frustrations and boredom, and maybe even someday to spankings themselves, instead of running away.

I begin to see a glimmer of possibility that I might someday work with parents, or with children, realizing fully that I cannot fix their situations. I can trust that by being there, being as fully present as I can be, acting in love and compassion, I am doing all that I am called to do. My presence, words and my actions will echo through time in ways I cannot predict or control. I can only be present and trust.

Sue Stigleman works as a medical librarian. She's been in an emotional-release women's therapy group for 3 years, and started a Hakomi Therapy training program in March. And, most important, she's Mom to her 7 year old son. Email her at: tangosue@earthlink.net