If I didn’t have it in 1977, you won’t be allowed it in 2012…

My children believe that there is no place worse than the 1970s.  When their father and I tell them stories of our youth they look at us with a mixture of bemusement and pity, but mostly what I see in their faces is relief that this a world they will never inhabit. When they ask us why we participated in what now seem like tedious activities, the answer, which they now chime in chorus is, “because there was nothing else to do.”

Other than their healthy dose of sarcasm about my childhood, most of the time I have great kids. But they are kids and sometimes I enforce consequences for their actions.  I do this by sending them to the one place they fear the most, I send them to the 1970s.  In our house the 1970s is the big gun, the punishment for having committed a major transgression and it turns out they don’t need too many intertemporal trips before they get the message.

I know that some parents are not big believers in punishment, but let me just say that I am. Continue reading →