Beatings

Last Wednesday Taylie was being a snot, so I smacked her with a pillow. It made her mad, so that night at dinner she was complaining about it to her Dad. She didn't get much sympathy. In fact, he informed her that some children get hit with belts.

The following night was parent-teacher conference. Here was the conversation:
Taylie: What do you do for teacher development day, when I'm not at school?
Teacher: Good question. We have classes about all sort of things. How to teach writing better, how to teach math, how to improve our classroom environment.
Taylie: What's classroom environment?
Me (should have kept my mouth shut): It means how to get the naughty kids to behave.
Taylie: Oh. My Dad hits me with a belt when I'm bad.

I turned bright red and was trying not to laugh. The teacher laughed as well. She told me that kids say those kinds of things all the time, and that she's learned to take it with a grain of salt. Still, it was embarassing.