Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, February 13, 1995                   TAG: 9502140013
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: BEN BEAGLE
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

SORRY, DR. SPOCK, CHEERIOS HAVE TO HAVE THE MILK

(For those kids mentioned above, let's be clear that we're talking here about Dr. Benjamin Spock, a longtime resident of this planet and not a Vulcan who left Star Fleet to become a physician.)

Dr. Spock was everywhere when we were bringing up children. He was a law unto himself. Many people thought that if they ignored his advice, they'd be sending cakes with files in them to their adult children in various correctional institutions.

Now, at 91, Dr. Spock is back, telling us not to let kids have milk or meat or they'll face early graves. And that goes for us, too.

Says he gave up meat and milk, and that's why he's 91.

I don't want to live to be that old if I can't have milk on my Cheerios and a good roast for the weekend that lasts until Tuesday when the remains are put into this really great soup.

Sorry, Doc. You won't get the guilt out of us like you used to, telling us that spanking was bad for kids. Messed up their little heads or something.

We spanked anyway - including an attention-getting technique my grandmother called a "back-handed lick."

Then, eaten with remorse, we lay in sleepless beds, waiting for our now-deranged children to stab us to death, and thinking we deserved it.

We watched for the first signs of sociopathic behavior in the kids. Like poison in the oatmeal. Or a bomb on the lawn mower.

Dr. Spock said kids should be given certain spank-free freedoms their parents hadn't dreamed of.

Some parents took this to mean that if Little Montcalm ruined the living room wall opposite the picture window with crayon scrawls - this window being in the first house you ever owned - he was being creative and shouldn't be hit soundly upside the head.

Now the doctor tells us milk and cookies are killers. It's like an attack on motherhood. You have to wonder if apple pie is next.

He would say cheeseburgers are bad for kids. I would say the cheeseburger has been an important social tool in this country in curbing aggressive behavior and regulating hormone velocity in teen-agers.

Hey, Doc. Gotta go. Dinner time. The kids - all grown and healthy and without rap sheets - are here for spaghetti with this meat sauce you wouldn't believe.

Not to mention the garlic-buttered French bread.