Kids and Cellphones

I had bags of shit to complain about but I've been sidetracked by a lot of work related and personal cell phone calls (Jody you fishing bastard! :), and my children’s need to parental guidance. You'll get the drift of the parental guidance thing when you read on. The work stuff is just work but I do spend an awful lot of time on work related phone calls on my personal cell phone away from work. So much in fact My Lady wants me to drop my cell phone entirely and go IM and Email only. She feels that this will accomplish two things.

1) Less Phone calls to interrupt our limited personal time together.

2) About a 50 reduction in our cell phone bill (we're keeping hers of course)!

3) It may convince my employer to provide me with a cell phone and pick up the bill.

3 and 1 kind of don't jive together but if 3 was to happen it would eliminate my guilt factor and hopefully mitigate the interruptions to my personal time. We'll see. I am building a spreadsheet chart of phone usage to determine who the monster cell phone user in the family is. I think it's her not me.

I'm too tired to go into too much detail but my daughter is being punished for a very good reason and I've started to document her Punishments. Here's the one I laid down today.

[Copy of punishment posted on her bedroom door]

Daughter's Punishment

Created: 06/16/05

Last Edited: 06/16/05

Last Proofed: 06/16/05

Author: Jeff Estes

Notes: This document details the offensive action taken by her and the punishment that has been delivered.

Offensive Action: her purchased a Manga Novel through a third party against both her parent's direct wishes.

Mother's Perspective: Mother believes that she has received too many gifts recently and has lost an appreciation for charity.

Father's Perspective: Father had advised her to wait until he could review the book for its adult content. It's a T+ or older teen book. He had previously recommended another age appropriate book like a Harry Potter book or the next book in the series she's currently reading.

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Punishment Terms

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1) Effective Immediately Today only = corporal punishment three lashes with a belt.

2) Effective Immediately until 07/01/05 = loss of internet privileges, DVD viewing privileges, Bedroom Computer Usage, and Television Viewing Privileges in her bedroom until the end of the month.

3) Effective Immediately until 07/17/05 = she is no longer allowed any overnight/late night company for one month.

4) Effective Immediately until 07/17/05 = she is no longer allowed to accompany Third Party Adults to run errands due to our inability to restrict her "charity gifts"

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Parental Goals for this Punishment

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To help her achieve a higher understanding of the seriousness of gross insubordination.

To help her better appreciate the level of privileges she is afforded on a daily basis.

To help her better understand better terms and expressions like "I'm bored" or "I never have any fun" or "There's nothing to do".

[End of copy of punishment posted on her bedroom door]

You might laugh at this but I'm deadly serious and I hope that this documentation will help remind her grossly insubordinate ass to shape up.

It's bed time. Word.

Posted by Jeff Estes while avoiding the "Fuck You" fairy.