I really don’t see how parents are able to raise their children these days. Today’s psychologists and so-called child raising experts admonish parents who want to beat the living daylights out of their children. And children readily dial 911 at even a veiled threat of harm, calling it child abuse.
When I was a child, it was “spare the rod and spoil the child.” And before you think I grew up in a terrible, abusive household, I didn’t. Yes, I got my share of punishments. And looking back, every one of them was well deserved. But my parents engaged in psychological torture much more than physical ones.
When I became a father, my mother warned me to use everything in my power to keep my children off balance so they never knew when and when you’re not going to follow through. It was good advice.
The primary arsenal in my family was the threat of the whip. My father had a three foot long leather whip. It had three large knots along the body of it, spaced about 8 inches apart. At the top was a loop, so it wouldn’t slip out of your hand. And at the bottom, a bunch of free flowing leather thongs… yes, it was basically a cat of nine tails.
It was used regularly on us. No, it never touched us. It was brought out and set on the table, waiting for my father to come home. As we passed by, each one of us would ask who it was meant for. And when the “troubled one” found out it was him, he would sweat it out, knowing that he was going to get the whip. He didn’t of course. Invariably, we would break down and confess, even to things we didn’t do, just to avoid the prospect of the whip which was never used, but could conceivably be at any time, at least in our young minds.
Me, in repentant thought.
The standard punishment was to kneel in the corner. It was the perfect Catholic punishment. Kneel in the corner in reflective prayer, asking God and our parents for forgiveness.
In the photo here, I am breaking the rules a bit. My nose is not in the corner. This netted additional time, as did resting your butt on the back of your knees. This was the usual corner, in the main hallway between the kitchen and living room, a place where siblings regularly passed and made fun of you, trying to get you to take your nose out of the corner. Of course, my mother virtually lived in the kitchen with four boys in the house, so she had direct line of sight to any infraction. She really should have had a penalty flag, like the NFL refs do and just throw it at us every time we butt rested or de-nosed.
As we got older, the corner didn’t work as well as it once did. If the crime was particularly severe, it would mean a spanking from my father, sometimes my mother. They were a good wallop. Only with the hand, never a paddle. If their hand hurt they knew our rumps did, too. Occasionally we would come in with a book shoved down our pants, as if the sudden appearance of a very rectangular rear end would fool them. Once in a while, my father would play along and hit the book, then make a grimaced look as we were told to take it out. I think spankings hurt him as much as it did us.
My mother relied on the family dog more than anything else. When we were supposed to be in bed, fast asleep, the dog would tell on us if we weren’t. He’d come bounding into the living room, wagging his tail and bouncing up and down. My mom would look at him and say, “Are those boys up?” He’d spin around. Then the command “Sick ’em” came and off our Scotty tore, ready to nip at our heels and make sure we didn’t get out of bed again. We knew his weakness, though. He would never come down the stairs into the playroom. He would tear down the hall, then slam on the brakes at the top of the stairs. We had reached safety.
Now you’d think my mother would take stuff away or ground us as punishment. Nope. Never even tried. Well, once I was grounded. I had ridden my bike down the center of Sunset Blvd., the two cars passing me within inches, each heading a different direction. No one should have known about this lapse in judgement, but one of the cars had a customer of my dad’s in it, who headed down to the shop and told my father about my stunt biking. I didn’t lose riding privileges though. I just had to stay on our street for a week.
My mother also didn’t appreciate a mouthy teenager. We would occasionally get into her face as she was doing the dishes. This was a bad piece of timing on our part. Mom would warn us to shut up while we were still ahead. And we’d continue on. Then, without warning, right in mid sentence, we’d taste the acrid, slightly burning flavor of dish soap running over our tongue and down our throat. It was my mother’s take on washing our mouth out with soap… the direct delivery method. It was effective. We stopped our bitching as we choked down a little Palmolive. I was surprised that we didn’t fart bubbles for days afterward.
Today, we can’t do anything imaginative to our children to help them see the light. A timeout? Positively worthless. Taking something away? Kids have so many toys today they’ll just move onto something else. Besides, they’re not much different than we were. They won’t crack. They’ll just look at you blankly, like you can’t do anything to make them sorry for what they did or have the least bit of regret. They have your number and you’re all out of whips.
Out on the Treasure Coast, writing this while still in the corner (no really),
– Robb