Old Fashioned BIG GUNS

When do you pull out the 'big guns' when needing discipline for your kids? Do you do the June Cleaver and warn "wait until your father comes home!" I know many women think it's old fashioned, that we are giving the power to the fathers and causing grief for ourselves by making him the primary disciplinarian. Well, in my home, we use this. I am home with my children more than my husband is, where he see's them about a 1/2 hour to 3 hours a night if at all. This puts me in the position of having to do all the discipline myself most of the time. I have to keep them on schedule, remind them of chores, get them where they need to be ready and on time...so it's ME that usually gets the attitude and unfinished chores. I have to handle it. No one else is there to do it. It is MY responsibility to handle it 95% of the time. But there are those occasions that enough is enough, that they have rolled right over me and I feel like I am losing every battle. So, YES, I call in the big guns.~~~~~~~I actually give him the problem and walk away. Not fair? Maybe not. But it works. It's not like they haven't been warned. Both their father and them were told that I was washing my hands of it. Not just that, but the children are given multiple warnings before it gets to the 'Big Gun' point. They know it's coming, they have a chance to fix the issue. They can choose. Most times they think I won't bother dad with such trivial stuff after a hard day of work, and sometimes they are right. Ha ha ha, I have to smile. I do this on purpose. They think they have leverage because I don't always 'tell' on them, but it's ME that has the leverage. SURPRISE! You never know when that will be. I might change my mind at the last second BUT I may not. You never know until he walks in the door and calls your name. I choose when to bring out that weapon, not them. My husband likes this deal. He has heard that it makes the father look mean to his kids if he is only called in to fix the damage. But not so. He gets to play and laze around with them, he doesn't have to fix the small stuff. When I call him, he does his thing, the wrinkles are ironed out and he goes back to the way things were. He is HAPPY with this arrangement. He can't handle all the day to day irritations, he leaves that to the more patient one, me. So, does this arrangement cause the kids to see their dad as a bully, a parent that is above the other? Not hardly. The kids see me and hear me daily show them how life works. Only when they have gone past a point do they get their dad. But the time they have reached that point, they know he's coming. ~~~~~~~~~It was the same way in my house when I was young. My mom had to deal with our problems constantly, so she looked like the mean one always nagging and scolding, but my dad laughed and played. But oh my gosh when my mom called in my dad, we went running!!! We KNEW he wasn't there to play when he called our name, and we always knew WHY he was calling us in. We weren't dumb, we knew he loved us, and we knew why we were getting punished. We pushed mama too far, past the point of her scolding and nagging and we were IN FOR IT. Old fashioned or not, calling in the BIG GUNS worked then and it works now for my family.