is it still legal to spank an american child?

Dear Irby and Ian,
I have a teenage daughter who has befriended a homeless boy. I am worried about her getting into trouble with this guy. She is 16 years old and his is 21. I caught him hiding in my daughter's bedroom a few days ago and my wife has tried to help him by directing him to shelters and to people that could help him get his life back on track. He showed up at my house again last night so we took him and dropped him off at his friend's house. I don’t trust this kid and think that he is a bad influence on my daughter. I believe that she is skipping school to help him out. I am afraid to go to sleep at night because I am afraid that he will come back to my house and get my daughter involved in something stupid. I don’t know what to do anymore. I have not been able to sleep or eat for a week now and I am really stressing out over this. Please help!

irby: i'm not a parent, so let's just get that out of the way before all of you people who've jerked off into a cup or transplanted eggs from a freezer into your womb before cracking your pelvis in half to force a three month old puppy out of your birth canals get tight with whatever i'm about to say. bitches with kids always act like bitches who don't have kids were raised by wolves or some shit and have no idea what goes into rearing a goddamned child. i watch tv, jerks. I GET IT, i just refuse to believe that hatching some demon spawn automatically renders you smarter or more capable than i am. i have a job, asshole. and i can keep plants alive. the only thing that baby is proof of is that you're better at missing your birth control and poking holes in condoms than i am. one of my smug parent friends was giving me the side-eye because i threw some shade at her terribly-behaved little asshole of a son a few weeks ago, then tried to school me on modern alternative parenting methods and shit. to justify why her son poured a glass of water over her head and wasn't throttled to a pulp immediately thereafter, obviously. the WHOLE FUCKING TIME i was just sitting there thinking, "you put pictures of your pussyhole on chatroulette and fuck dudes off craigslist, you dumb slut. don't you talk to me about PARENTING." i mean, i don't know about soy formula or charter preschools or infant vaccinations, but COME ON. how hard could it possibly be?!

THAT SAID, i would beat the brakes off my kid for some crazy shit like this. for real, if i wouldn't be put in jail, i would tag this bitch's ASS OFF. with a two-by-four, splinters and all. i'm trying to picture the hardcore, PTSD-addled, alcoholic korean war-veteran marine i grew up with wringing his hands because i decided to drag some moth-eaten, shit-stinking, homeless GROWN ASS MAN into his goddamned house. i was never spanked as a child because i was ABSOLUTELY PERFECT, but i knew that this motherfucker was out of his mind entirely, and after watching him beat a man half to death on our porch with a hammer one summer afternoon i knew to steer way the fuck clear of his bad side.

we had two dogs. one was a collie, this very sweet house dog named trudy who slept with me and played with our cats and was generally quite awesome except for the time she bit me because i was shoving a handful of cold medicine down her throat. the other was named caesar, and he was a giant wolf-looking sonofabitch with gigantic teeth and a shitty attitude who remained chained to our garage and lived on a diet of raw sirloin and milk with gunpowder in it. trudy was for me and my sisters; caesar was my father's dog. he killed six neighborhood dogs too stupid to realize not to jump the fence into our yard, and one night while patrolling the screened-in back porch he politely mangled and removed the hand of a dude who tried to let himself in without our permission.

needless to say, NO ONE SNUCK INTO OUR FUCKING HOUSE. the one night carol jumped out of her bedroom window to go have sex with some dude, caesar alerted my father to this activity and he promptly got out of bed and nailed her window shut, forcing her to sheepishly ring the doorbell so she could be let back in several hours later. after which i'm pretty sure he broke her jaw or waterboarded her or some shit. but my dad was also the kind of dude who would molotov cocktail the car of the boy who'd broken his teenage daughter's heart. true story. which, while a sweet, chivalrous gesture for sure, is MOTHERFUCKING TERRIFYING. i didn't need to get spanked or hit or threatened; between my father's deserved reputation as an insane person and my mother's sharp red nails digging into the soft flesh of my tricep whenever i was getting out of line, i was convinced that one of these people would fucking MURDER ME if i stepped too far out of line. so, other than mouthing off all the time and occasionally trying to kill one of the family pets, I DIDN'T DO SHIT.

why the fuck isn't this kid afraid of you? does she have some dirt on your ass? vodka bottle hidden in your desk drawer? banging your secretary during your lunch breaks?! GODDAMN, HOMIE. let's say i met a hot homeless dude while hanging around the dumpsters after school. even if he had a body like jesus and could rap like tupac, the minute he asked if he could come to my house visions of my gutted carcass strung from one of the trees in our yard would fill my head. my father would have ripped my heart out of my chest and fed it to that goddamned dog, then hung me from a tree so that birds could peck out my tongue and feast on the milky parts of my eyes. he would call my three older sisters out to admire his handiwork, the silent cautionary tale entitled, "this could happen to you bitches" hanging in the air like smoke. he would give away all of my toys and new kids on the block posters to the girls in my class i hated most, and then burn any evidence that i'd ever existed. and he wouldn't even miss me, because "stupid people should be rid from the earth." how's that for a bedtime story?

so here are a couple tips from the pages of my father's parenting book called, "how to terrify your children into submission" aka "show your bitch-ass kids you have a dick." war stories are good, so enlist in the military if you've never served because true ones are the best. if you've never killed anyone (and why haven't you?), MAKE SOME SHIT UP. and tell the gruesome tale in all of its bloody glory to your asshole kid while putting her down for a nap. walk around the house muttering to yourself and throwing shit at random. make some weird rules. (one of my favorites? NO WHISTLING IN THE HOUSE. the only time i was ever slapped was for whistling while doing the dishes, holy omg.) leave guns on the kitchen counter. drink grain alcohol with your breakfast cereal and just be drunk all the time. get a scary dog that kills things. call everyone "motherfucker." drive a yellow chevy caprice and dare anyone to question your manhood. punch dudes in the face when they give you shit. beat dudes in the head with a hammer when they piss you off. keep an aluminum bat in the trunk of your car, for "emergencies." go by the name ONE IRON DUKE. consume only: rare steaks, the blood of your enemies, and french vanilla ice cream. survive SIX HEART ATTACKS, unscathed.

i thought that dude would never die. when he did, i tried to convince my sisters to whistle during his funeral. they were too afraid. terrifying us from the grave, to this day. pick your skirt up, grab your balls, and go get you some of THAT, you sissy. my father would've had that boy chopped up and roasted on our dinner plates by then end of that first night. MAN THE FUCK UP.