Isaac pauses stuffing the coffee cake into his mouth and stares at me, “You asked Mom for a spanking?”

“Have you seen my monitors?”

“Why would you ever do that?” He continues.

I lift up the jackets and bags on the little couch and look carefully. We have something like ten minutes before we’re expected on stage.

Isaac nods at the small table next to the couch.

“Thanks,” I say gratefully, picking them up and collapsing on the couch. I wince and reposition myself so I’m mostly sitting on my side with my feet up on the couch with me.

Isaac flops down next to me and finishes off his piece of crumb cake, “So wait…explain what happened with Mom?”

I sigh and drop my head back against the couch, “It’s complicated…”

I close my eyes and think back. I was sitting in one of the rooms backstage with Mom in the middle of a school lesson looking over an essay I had turned in a few days earlier on the most boring topic on the world- the life of Thomas Jefferson.

“Alright listen to this part…” Mom says, pointing to the first paragraph, “For those few people who really want to know about Thomas Jefferson’s youth, they need to look no farther than Roanoke, Virginia.”

I looked up at her and shrugged, “Yeah. What’s wrong with it?”

“Aside from the fact that you have an attitude in your writing tone, you never want to start a piece with your angle that your topic is not interesting. You need to at least fake excitement about your topic.”

I shrugged again, “Well, I was just trying to be honest.”

Mom gave me a warning look before pointing to the next red mark on the page, “This sentence is supposed to say tobacco was THEIR crop. You wrote tobacco was there crop. Get out a piece of paper from your notebook.”

I groaned and ripped a spare piece out. I hated these stupid grammar exercises.

“I want you to write three sentences using their, t-h-e-i-r, there, t-h-e-r-e, and they’re- t-h-e-y apostrophe r-e differently. Show me how you use them right.”

I sighed and rubbed my eyes for a moment before attempting this. It was going to make it very obvious how much I wasn’t listening to her lecture about this exact same issue earlier in the week.

I began to write:

Pizza is there favori

“Taylor, no,” Mom sighed, “Weren’t you listening to me yesterday morning? There means a place. I want you to go there. Or it defines something- there are four chairs. If you’re saying pizza is their favorite, then you need to use the possessive word- their. T-h-e-i-r. Are you listening? This is important.”

It was enough to make me want to jump out the window headfirst. How could something be so boring and yet so important according to my mother? I began to wonder if we should perform Where’s the Love with MMMBop instead of Thinking of You.

“Taylor.”

“Mom,” I sighed, “Can we just move on to tearing apart my essay? What did I get on this anyway?”

I grabbed the essay and flipped through to the last page. A C- great. A lousy C.

“A C?” I asked out loud and slammed the paper down on the table, “I hate this! I’m so bad at this. I’ll never do well and I’ll never like this. Can we be done with school for now?” I glanced at my watch, “I have to be on stage in 20 minutes.”

“You’ve been putting it off all afternoon and you’re going to be exhausted after the show, so no. We’re going to work on this now,” Mom said in her best orderly tone. “Now, I want you to use the word their, t-h-e-i-r, correctly. Go ahead.”

I gripped the pencil hard and glared at the paper, just so she knew just how angry I was with her. Carefully, I began to write again, then with a smile playing at my lips.

I wrote:

Students think grammar is the stupidest waste of there time

I scribbled in a big period and tossed the pencil down.

“Not only do I find that fresh, but it’s wrong,” Mom concluded after reading my scratchy hand writing.

“I don’t care!” I finally gasped, getting up from my spot in the wooden chair and ringing my hands out, “I don’t care if I can’t spell! I don’t need to spell. I play piano for a living…”

“You play piano for a living? I didn’t realize at age 14 you even had a living. This is your third show since Middle of Nowhere. Don’t you count your chickens before they’re hatched…” Mom reasoned.

“Oh, so now you’re saying I’m a failure! I’m destined to fail at making music and be forced to do something else instead, huh? Not to believe in myself? Not to believe in my music?” I was doing the best I could to manipulate her. I was determined to make her feel guilty.

“Don’t you dare twist my words around,” she spat back.

I placed my hands on my hips carefully and looked down at her with a challenging expression on my face. Who did she think she was anyway, I thought. Who the hell did she think she was talking to me like I was four years old! I had an important job to do and a lot of responsibility with the band, and the last thing I needed was my mother bossing me around and forcing me to do homework when clearly homework should not be my first priority!

“Whatever,” I sighed, “I have to be on stage to follow my stupid, impossible dreams in…” I glanced at my watch, “19 minutes. So if you don’t mind, I’m going to go and find my monitors, drink some water, and mentally prepare myself.”

I began to walk confidently, my strides wide and determined, towards the door.

“I did not give you permission to leave this room,” Mom said coldly. She said nothing more. I noticed there was no emotion in her voice, and it almost scared me into turning around and sitting back down like the obedient child I was expected to be.

But I didn’t. With a quick glance in her direction, I replied with, “I didn’t ask for any,” and stormed out of the room. As soon as I’d stepped out into the hallway I knew how much trouble I was in. I heard Mom slide the chair back and I glanced around desperately for a place to hide. A closet? A vacant room? My breathing caught in my throat as my eyes darted around.

Too late. Mom dug her nails into my arm and swung me around so I was looking at her. I winced in fear as I saw the extreme fury in her eyes. With a tense jaw she said with perfect annunciation, “I have never, EVER seen you disrespect me this much in my entire life. In fact, I have never seen ANY of my child disrespect me like you just did.”

I swallowed. That was a pretty serious statement. A spanking immediately came to mind. I knew it was coming. I desperately tried to convince myself that maybe I was wrong. Maybe Mom would let me off the hook with a few days without my phone or a week without television. But I know what she hated more than anything was deliberate disobeying, and that’s exactly what I was doing.

She dragged me back into the room and pushed me gently towards the couch. My heart plunged when I heard the door slam. I was a dead man.

“How many times can a parent have the same conversation with their son?” Mom threw out there.

I looked at her dumbly. Was I expected to answer? I was far too wound up about how bold I had been and yet scared for my punishment to come up with a good answer though.

“How many times can I tell you that you better watch your ego or I’m going to pull the plug on this traveling right now? Dad warned you before we left, we warned all of you before you recorded…I believe we warned you yesterday morning in fact. How many times can we keep having this conversation? You are still a child! I don’t care if you’re doing an adult job right now! You are a 14 year old boy and no matter how many screaming girls there are, or how many tv shows you appear on, I am still your mother!” I tuned in completely. I think I knew I needed to hear what she had to say, as much as I didn’t want to hear it.

“You’re 14! You’re not old enough to even drive! I will not sit here and let you walk out of here claiming that you suddenly don’t need permission to leave the room!”

My heart jumped. I couldn’t believe I had said that. At first it had felt so exciting…so bold. But the more she talked about it, and the more I thought about it, the worse I began to feel.

“Is that what’s going to happen now? You start appearing on television and suddenly you don’t think you need permission from your mother to make the decisions you make?”

I tried to swallow but my throat stayed still. I refused to believe I was becoming conceited…

“You have fans across the country now and suddenly your ego has tripled? We’ve been on the road for one week, Taylor. If this is how you’re going to treat your mother after a week, I don’t even want to know how it’s going to be after a few months.”

It felt terrible. The shame hit me hard. It didn’t take it’s time to sweep into my mind and then heart like it sometimes does. In my mother’s intense lecture I could see just how arrogant I was becoming. I was becoming exactly what I promised I’d never come- a stuck up little twit.

“Well I’m sorry to do this Taylor,” Mom shook her head, “I’m sorry to do this to Isaac and Zac too…”

I knew exactly what was coming and rose to my feet in fear.

“Sit down!”

I sat down just as fast as I stood up, “Mom! Please! I am so sorry it has become like this…I am so sorry for my attitude…”

She shook her head rhythmically as I begged though.

“Mom! Please! It’s only been a week! Give me a second chance!” I could feel tears springing in my eyes. She was actually about to pack everyone up and send us back to Tulsa. Everything we had worked for was about to be over. This was the opportunity of a lifetime, and my mom was about to end the whole dream right then and there. I was petrified.

“How many chances can we give you? How big of a brat are you going to be after another chance? How about after two more? Three more? You were warned before we left that we were afraid this would go to your head and you would act out! And you promised and promised, No Momma it won’t…” she imitated me, “And here you are walking out on me after I deliberately told you not to! What more can I give you Taylor? Have I not been generous enough? Was packing the entire family up, investing money into traveling, and trying to support the three of you not enough?”

My stomach sank. It killed me when she put it that way. She was right. Mom and Dad had sacrificed so much for the three of us, and this is how I was treating her. More than anything I wanted to go back and change my attitude around, but I feared it was too late.

“Momma…” I mumbled as I began to cry, “Momma…I am so sorry…”

I saw her body ease as she heard it. My mother knows us all like the back of her hand, and she knows me well enough to know just how honest and genuine I was being in that moment.

The room was quiet as Mom thought and I let silent tears fall down my cheeks. Finally, she spoke, “Alright. Then I will give you the option. Either we pack up right now, go back to Tulsa, and concentrate on being Godly young men at home, or you take a spanking for this and understand that you are on probation for the rest of the tour.”

Probation?

Like I said, my mother knows me too well. She clarified, “Probation. Meaning Dad and I watch you like a hawk and if there’s any attitude that we don’t approve of, you’re punished on the spot.”

I knew I had no option. I was taking the spanking. It wasn’t even a choice. I didn’t think I’d ever see the day that I’d care so much about something else that I’d actually ask for a spanking, but Mom always seemed to prove me wrong.

I hung my head and nodded, “Okay…”

“Okay, what?”

I swallowed and looked up with her with pleading eyes. She knew what I meant. Did she really need to keep asking?”

“I’ll take the spanking, I guess,” I cringed at the thought.

“I want you to tell me why you deserve it, and I want you to ask for it. You seem to think you’re so good at making your decisions on your own- I want you to tell me that it is your decision to take this spanking. I am not forcing this on you. You are choosing it. In fact, you chose it when you deliberately disobeyed me.”

I bit my lip and tried to gather the courage to speak it. After a few awkward seconds I finally opened my mouth and said what I knew I needed to say, “Mom…Mom…I deserve to be spanked because I got…my head got too big and my attitude became disrespectful…I lost touch with the values I was raised with.” I looked up at her for encouragement.

She nodded, “And?”

“And…” I looked down to the ground as I muttered the final part, “Would you please spank me as my punishment?”

Mom nodded, “Yes, I will. Get up and go into the main green room and get my brush from my purse. I don’t want the purse- just the brush.”

I sighed and nodded, knowing the only thing I could do, or even wanted to do, was obey. I dragged my feet along the ground as I began the humiliating trek to get the brush and carry it back to her. I know humiliated is just what she was going for.

I cringed as I walked into the green room to see not only Isaac, Zac, and two of my younger siblings, but our back up players too.

“Tay, we have 15 minutes,” Ravi, our back up guitarist, told me.

I nodded and went towards my mom’s purse, digging the brush out and clenching it in my fingers. I could do this…

I could feel every eye in the room on me, and I know they all exchanged expressions. Without a word, I solemnly walked out of the room with the dreadful brush at my side. I felt like I had “ABOUT TO BE SPANKED” stamped across my forehead as I walked back to the room where Mom was.

“Can I close the door…” I tentatively asked. Spankings are usually private in my family.

“You walked right out that open door when I told you not to, and so you can get spanked with it open too,” Mom justified. She sat down on the couch and I groaned, trudging over to her. This is for the music, this is for the music…I repeated in my head.

“Pants down,” Mom instructed and took the brush from me.

I whimpered slightly without meaning for her to hear and carefully undid the button and zipper on my corduroys. I dropped them to my ankles and looked nervously at the open door.

“Come on the other side of me so you’re facing the door. The door will stay open, but not everyone walking by needs to see your naked backside,” Mom said mercifully. I inwardly thanked her and waddled over to the other side of her, lying down over her lap just hoping to get it over with.

She pulled me up a bit more so my bottom was in the position she wanted it to be and pulled the back of my boxers down- revealing my bare bottom.

I whined in fear as I sensed her lifting the brush. With the first hard smack, I knew it was going to be a tough spanking. I was determined to take it like a man though. It was for the music, and my dream, and I was determined to prove to Mom just how important this dream was to me. Nothing could change my mind…not even the hardest spanking the world.

I tried my best not to cry or make noise as she slapped my reddening bottom over and over again with the awful brush. The quicker she snapped her wrist, the more it stung and eventually it was too much for me to handle. I cried out in pain as she spanked my bottom for about the 10th time. After the first cry, there was no turning back. I began sobbing and flailing around like a toddler but I couldn’t help it.

“Momma!” I cried in pain and humiliation, “I’ve learn…learned my lesson. Please…please…Mom. That hur...hurts!”

I squeezed my eyes closed in order to avoid seeing any people passing by the open door. What I didn’t see couldn’t humiliate me further. I just knew everyone next door in the green room could hear each spank and each sob from me.

Mom didn’t let up though. In fact, I would go as far as saying she gave me perhaps one of the worst spankings she’d ever given me. She spanked my bottom until it was raw and until both of our energy had run out. After about 50 spanks, I was too worn out to continue fighting so I just laid there limply in her lap crying as I endured my punishment. Mom finally stopped spanked me when she seemed to have no more energy left in her arm to keep hitting me. With one final hard slap with the brush, she dropped it next to her and helped me stand up.

“Look at me!” She shouted, but she sounded more upset than angry. I hated that I was the reason for it. I hated that one week of fame could do this to me.

With a bare, red bottom and crying eyes I stood up there and looked at her. After a few terrible seconds of just standing there humiliated waiting for her to speak, she said, “I hope the attitude is gone. The second it comes back your father will give you a spanking with the belt no matter where you are. Understood?”

I nodded and wiped the salty tears from my face. This was my dream on the line. I have never understood anything better in my life.

A man paused at the door and did his best not to look at us. He kept his eyes transfixed on the ground which only made it more obvious how shocked he was to see a 14-year-old rising star spanked bare bottom by his mother.

I desperately reached back and pulled my boxers and pants back up.

“We were just reminding Taylor that he has approximately 10 minutes to be on stage. It’s not live, but it’s important to keep on schedule,” the man managed to utter.

Mom nodded and looked at me. I nodded too with my head hung in embarrassment as the man walked away. As much as I wanted to just go and hide, I knew there was something else I needed to look. I looked up at Mom and without any other motive, I apologized because I felt terrible for what I had done. It was still hard to believe I had actually told my mother I didn’t need her permission to disobey.

“Mom…” I started, “I’m really sorry. When I promised you and dad that I would behave myself for this promotion…I really did mean it. I just lost my head a little bit…and…and I appreciate what you and Dad are doing for us.”

There, I’d said it. And I’d completely, wholeheartedly meant it.

“I appreciate that, Taylor,” she nodded as she digested the information, “Take the brush back into the other room, get a drink, and get yourself ready for the stage. You will probably need to splash your face with water,” Mom instructed.

I nodded and collected the brush and my school supplies.

“And Taylor?” She added, “If you want Dad and I to look at you and see a professional and capable musician, then you better start giving us a reason to and bring the maturity up a notch.”

The scary thing is she was so completely right, and it was so completely simple. If I wanted to be taken seriously and seen as the professional I wanted to be seen as, I couldn’t get myself into the situation of taking a spanking backstage from my mother. It meant I needed to stop slacking off with school work and sassing Mom during lessons.

“I love you, Mom,” suddenly came out of my mouth without it meaning to. I took myself by surprise. I was 14 years old. I was the stage in my life where the last thing I would be caught doing would be telling my mom how much I loved her, especially after an especially humiliating spanking. But I couldn’t help it. I felt so much gratitude for her at the moment it just slipped out.

And Mom actually smiled, “I love you too. Go get ready.”

I nodded solemnly before I shuffled out of the room and into the green room to find Isaac picking at a piece of crumb cake.

“How many people heard?” I sighed as I tossed my stuff down on the couch and began looking for my headphones.

“Pretty much everyone….you were pretty loud. What happened that made Mom spank you 15 minutes before a performance? That’s pretty serious…” Ike questioned, dabbing at some crumbs on his shirt.

“I asked for a spanking,” I sighed.