Damn the Nanny!

I. Elementary School:
Don’t Start No #@*~,
Won’t Be No #@*~
Chapter 1
Money like Oprah
“It’s not fair!” ten-year-old Desmond screamed as he stomped down the stairs to clean up the mess he made in his bedroom.
“I hate this house!” He screamed at the top of his lungs while stomping back and forth around the basement.
“Good,” I yelled as I leaned over the handrail, “I hate messes, so now we are even!”
My husband, Darrin and I, noticed that as each of our children hit the age of ten, they began to make personal demands while denying parental requests. When Desmond reached fifth grade, like the others before him, he felt as if he had some type of royalty privileges.
The kitchen sits directly above the bedroom our three boys; Quasim, Travonté and Desmond share. Our daughter, LaCrystal’s bedroom is upstairs with ours. On this particular Saturday morning, I was in the kitchen preparing Patti LaBelle’s homemade buttermilk biscuits, so I could hear Desmond throwing shoes and other heavy articles against the bedroom door and hitting the walls. I turned up the volume on the radio, hoping the music would drown out his temper tantrum. Even though he is the youngest in the family, his defiance reigned supreme. He forcefully opened the bedroom door and yelled upstairs at me.
“It’s not fair! I hate this house and I hate you!”
I turned down the music, walked over to the stairs and looked over the banister.
“Life isn’t fair! Deal with it! If life was fair, then I would have a face like Halle Berry, a body like Beyoncé, and money like Oprah Winfrey. But since I am stuck with what God gave me, so are you.”
He slammed the bedroom door and continued yelling that he hated me.
I shouted over the railing at the closed door, “Save all of your hate words for the Christmas season. Remind me that you hate me and you don’t want me spending hundreds of dollars on you. But for now, get that room cleaned because inspection is in one hour.”
The month of December is the most peaceful month of the year. You would think our children were walking around strumming harps and singing angelic hymns. Darrin and I have absolutely no trouble the entire month. The trash is taken out without a fuss; they bathe without an argument, clean their bedrooms and even volunteer to clean the kitchen. After the toys and games are broken, lost or the novelty wears off, they mutate back into ungrateful spawns who talk-back and behave disrespectfully. Well, I was fed-up with their selfishness and bad attitudes.
The bedroom door swung open again and Desmond angrily yelled upstairs, “One hour! I can’t clean all of this mess up in one hour! It took me a whole week to make this mess.”
“Well then,” I calmly stated, “you better stop throwing stuff and start cleaning up and when you're done, a plate will be in the oven, but you won’t eat until I inspect.”
“Shit!” He screamed and began growling and mumbling under his breath. He slammed the door and started throwing stuff against the walls again. I made a mental note of his potty-mouth, but decided to deal with one problem at a time. I finished making a big breakfast of hot; butter-milk biscuits, sizzling bacon drizzled with maple syrup, and oatmeal seasoned with brown sugar, plump raisins, pecans, and cinnamon. I made sure I left the oven on low so the aromas of the foods wafted through the air.
He called me downstairs an hour later and I inspected his side of the bedroom. The shoes were neatly placed under the bed. The clothes were placed in dirty clothes hampers, the bed was made and disheveled papers were placed neatly on his dresser. It was clean! I thanked him for a job well done and reminded him that his plate was waiting for him in the oven as I went back upstairs to the kitchen. When he came upstairs to eat he apologized for his behavior. I told him I appreciated the apology and reminded him that we could not afford a live-in maid, so until I received a genie in a magic lamp with three wishes or money like Oprah, anyone who made a mess would have to clean it up.

Chapter 2
SS Video Game
Quasim loved his new hand-held Game Boy Advance. He played it regularly, at the breakfast table, during lunch, and at dinner. He played it while watching TV, doing his homework, and occasionally, while he was falling asleep. A few times I had to pry it out of his fingers while he slept. When he was told to put the game away, he would hide it for a few minutes until he thought no one was looking, then he would pull it out and start playing it again.
Darrin and I limited Quasim’s playing time to weekends by taking the game away on Sunday nights prior to bedtime. We placed it on a bookshelf in our bedroom and locked our bedroom door during the weekdays while we were at work. On Saturday mornings, we would give him the Game Boy for the weekend.
One particular Saturday, I went to retrieve the Game Boy and found that it was no longer on the bookshelf where I had placed it. It was sitting on top of the TV. The following week, I placed it on the dresser but it ended up on the bookshelf. Finally, I placed the Game Boy in our bathroom in a cabinet drawer, when I went to retrieve it on Saturday it was back on the bookshelf. To make matters worse, we received a letter from Quasim’s school telling us that Quasim’s homework was not being turned in and his grades were dropping.
I knew I had to prepare a punishment that would address violating our privacy and cause him to focus on his academics. I decided to patiently wait and watch for two weeks before I acted.
One evening during dinner, Darrin and I broached the subject and asked Quasim about his homework. We wanted to know why he felt his grades were declining. He shrugged his shoulders and nonchalantly told us that he forgot to turn in his homework.
I asked in a voice as calmly as I could muster, “You’re at school for 7 hours and you forget to turn in your homework? Are you in class or are you on a space shuttle orbiting Earth while everyone else is in school?”
“I just forget,” he casually stated. “I don’t see why it’s such a big deal anyway.”
“Do you forget to go to breakfast and lunch?” Darrin asked. Without answering, and with a dumbfounded look on his face, Quasim started looking around the dining room.
“Did you know that since you don’t have excellent grades and your test scores are average, when you do the homework you receive points that are added to your letter grade and they can actually help improve your chances of passing?” Darrin explained to him.
Rolling his eyes, Quasim replied, “Yes, I know how the grading system works,” insinuating he was fed up with our questioning. “I’m not worried about that, I’ll get my grades up before the grading period ends.” He blatantly informed us. He finished dinner, completed his homework and without a second thought went to watch TV until bedtime. His two-week time period was coming very close to ending and my patience was running low.
After several calls and a few meetings with his teacher’s, we agreed upon them sending home a homework completion form on Friday’s. When he was assigned homework; he completed it, the teacher initialed it, and on Fridays a form with each teacher’s signature was sent home confirming his progress.
This worked for a week until Quasim brought home excuses: He had a substitute teacher, there was no homework, the teacher walked out of class and never returned, and the class was in the library all day. He faithfully came upstairs every Saturday pleading for the Game Boy though.
One Saturday afternoon he came upstairs begging to get his Game Boy and I handed it to him. He smiled, took it, and went downstairs. I went downstairs a few minutes later and found him sprawled out on the dining room floor and his fingers were moving so fast across the buttons on the Game Boy they looked mechanical. It was time to put my plan in action so I casually strolled over to him and I asked for the video game. He slowly sat up and handed it to me, silently watching as I pulled the cartridge out. I went into the bathroom, lifted the toilet seat lid, and dropped the cartridge into the toilet. Plop! It floated down to the bottom and settled in a corner.
He ran into the bathroom ¬after me, pushing me out of the way and looked into the toilet. His mouth opened and closed like a guppy. I dropped the entire Game Boy into the toilet. It drifted to the bottom and rested beside the cartridge.
“Are you crazy?” He shouted.
“No,” I calmly stated. “But if you think we will allow you to continue breaking into our bedroom every week in search of that Game Boy, playing it all day and lying about your school work, then you are crazy.”
“This is crazy, I can’t believe you!” He continued to shout as he angrily paced around the toilet like a predator circling prey.
“You better believe it, buddy. I will be as crazy as the Mad Hatter before I allow you to continue with this addictive behavior.” I turned and walked out of the bathroom just as he reached into the toilet to retrieve the game pieces.
Later, I learned he tried to dry the game pieces, but it never worked the same. Eventually, his homework started coming home, it was completed and turned in on time, and surely enough the grades improved.

Chapter 3
Barbershop 101
I was sitting at my desk reading on my break when I received a call from the sixth grade principal.
“Mrs. Chambers, are you sitting down?”
“Yes,” I replied as I closed the book. “I am.”
“Desmond is being suspended for three days. Apparently, during art class he took out a pair of scissors and clipped off a classmate’s pony-tail.”
“You’re kidding me, right?”
“We’re sending home a disciplinary referral, for a three-day suspension, but it’s up to the parents of the other student if they plan to press criminal charges. The staff and I are looking into expelling him, but we have agreed to wait until you discipline him. We like your form of discipline, and it seems to work better than anything we can give students.”
I was definitely going to put Desmond back into therapy until graduation. Instead of going to the senior prom, he would be sitting in a therapist’s chair dressed in a cummerbund and tuxedo.
“Hello, Mrs. Chambers, are you still there?”
“Yes, I am here.”
“We’d like to give you a few days to think of a suitable punishment at home because the school is unsure of which disciplinary action to take for this particular situation. Do you have any idea of how you plan to handle this?”
I told him I had no idea at the time, but I would contact him later during the week. I called Darrin and told him of the incident. After the initial shock, he asked me what “I” planned to do about Desmond. Why was everyone pushing the discipline on me? I did not have all the answers. Was the staff afraid to discipline a sixth-grader?
I left work early and got home a few minutes before the school buses dropped off the students. Desmond arrived home and saw me sitting at the dining room table. He slid into a chair next to me. I remained completely silent. Several minutes passed before he attempted to explain his version of the incident.
After repeatedly insisting the girl was his friend and that she gave him permission to cut her hair, he informed me that her parents would be okay with the cut. After all, he only cut off a little bit. The principal was exaggerating.
“Son, do you know that you can be criminally charged? Furthermore, do you even understand what criminally charged means?”
A blank stare confirmed he had no clue as to the gravity of his actions. He truly believed it was a minor incident that was blown out of proportion.
Darrin came home, looked at Desmond, shook his head, and without a word, went upstairs to take a shower. Shortly afterwards, LaCrystal and Quasim arrived home from high school. They cautiously surveyed the situation and shook their heads before going to start their homework. I continued talking to Desmond.
“What in the world was going through your head, Desmond? I don’t have the time or patience to be sitting in court or the principal’s office over such senseless and reckless behavior. If you have uncontrollable thoughts running through your head, please, let me know so I can try to seek professional help for you.”
“There is nothing running through my head.”
“I figured that. But why did you do it?”
“I was bored.”
“You were bored? Lord, give me strength.”
I got up and walked a few steps away, making sure I was more than an arm’s distance away from him. I looked out the window at the trees and took a couple of deep breaths.
“I send books, scribble pads, pens—and weren’t you in art class today? Did drawing something ever cross your mind? You don’t just sit in class and cut somebody’s hair because you’re bored. If you want to take cosmetology class, wait until high school!”
Travonté arrived home. He and Desmond attended the same school. Before going downstairs he told Desmond that the other kids were talking about him. Desmond lowered his head.
“Stupid!” Travonté yelled and ran downstairs.
“I wanted to cut her hair and she let me! What’s it to you anyway?” Desmond blurted out.
“You have lost your mind! You are trying your best to make me go there. Don’t move, I’ll be right back!”
I ran upstairs to get my cosmetic mirror; a comb, a towel and hair-clippers. He continued to sit at the table. After neatly placing the items on the kitchen counter, I called Desmond over.
“Son, come sit on the bar stool. Since you like to cut hair, I would like to see your skills, and you can start on your own head.”
“I don’t want my hair cut. I just wanted to see if I could cut her hair. Anyway, she asked me to cut her hair because she’s my friend.”
I patted the barstool two times. He took two large steps back, pressing his back against the kitchen sink, and distancing himself from me. His hands were balled into tight fists; I noticed his biceps flexing as his breathing became deep and sporadic and his face a deep shade of red.
“Why do we have to do this?” he screamed.
“Son, I am going to say this as calmly as I can. Please don’t take my quietness as a weakness. It is in your best interest to release your fists because if you hit me, I promise you, I will light a fire under your ass so intense it will take fire departments from two counties to put it out.”
He gradually relaxed, unclenched his fists, approached the stool, sat down, and took the clippers from my hand. Our other children were silently crowding into the kitchen. I leaned against the counter.
“All of you can do better than this. I don’t want any of you to grow up and blame your misfortunes on the world, your race, the system, or your parents. You have a choice; either play the victim or make something out of your life.”
I looked into each of their eyes while nodding my head slightly, acknowledging each of them. There was relief on their faces because they were not the ones receiving the punishment, but they all understood the lesson to be learned. As I spoke, Desmond was still holding the clippers and looking at the floor. I could hear him humming a faint tune, which was his way of mentally drowning out my voice.
I walked over, took his hand and turned on the clippers. It started buzzing and vibrating. He dropped it to the floor, jumped up, threw his head back and ran around the kitchen in circles wailing loudly, “I don’t want my hair cut! I don’t want my hair cut! It’s not fair! You can’t do this!”
Darrin came downstairs and stood in the kitchen’s entrance. Desmond stopped and looked at him.
“Her parents did not ask you to cut her hair, did they?” He asked Desmond. “Did they send a letter to school giving you the authority to style their daughter’s hair?”
“No.”
“Furthermore, show me your cosmetology license.”
“I don’t know how to cut hair!” he bawled.
“That didn’t stop you in class, did it? Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
I picked up the clippers, called him over to the stool, and proceeded to cut his hair. It went well until the guard kept getting tangled in his hair and slipping off, leaving a bald spot. When I was done, he resembled a well-loved, but tattered, teddy-bear.
Later that night, Desmond came upstairs to our bedroom and told us that he was going to write an apology letter to his classmate, her parents, and one to the principal. We agreed that his decision was a wonderful idea, and if he needed any help, we would assist him. The next day, I located a good therapist and I never had to open “the barbershop” again.