I kept a broad wooden spoon to give my children hidings.
NB:- I make no apology for giving my kids hidings.
(Though I'd appreciate an occasional apology for the many parents, with torrid little monsters, who do in fact fail at any attempt at discipline. )
The - broad - wooden - spoon!
Well not that I "kept it", it assumed its role, of its own volition, "the discipliner" whereafter it was rarely used to stir any pot.
It was from France, (for this I forgive de Gualle) and it was known (in hushed corners) as "THE FRENCH SPOON!"
The kids have turned out okay...I think.
No.
I am sure.
They are fine.
Besides no one knows what good parenting is anymore. Know one knows what bad parenting is. AND worst of all, no one has a clue what evil parenting is. We as a society have no objectives . No benchmarks. So too we have no meanings. As parents too, we have no conceptual standards.
So what did that spoon mean?
Well for an important many years through my children's development we lived on the open ocean. But most of it was anchored off of islands, in many coves and about islets and sounds. So there were strict bounds to my children's lives, and their world. Bounds that could not be transgressed.
What rocks NOT to climb. What points NOT to sail past. What waters NOT to swim in. What time to be back on board (twilight). What fish could NOT be eaten. The nudist beach to STAY off! What coconuts not to pick. (The trees were too high.) Where the cockpit boundary existed. Not to feed the sharks... They could not freely rush to the foredeck to see the dolphins, porpoise, seals, or even whales, nor dangle & dilly on the transom. They'd have to wait for their harnesses. They had to take baths every single day. They had to eat their meals! Whatever that meal was. That included the vegetables. All the vegetables.
And it included licking their plates. (Limited water to wash dirty plates...)
Other that that, generally, they'd be afforded the freedom of the island. The freedom of their souls...Happily off the continent of Australian there is still a real world. A place were there is no stranger danger, nor creed, nor colour nor language barrier, nor gender grouping, nor age barrier. Kids know they're to keep sharp.
For some many long years I spent 24/7 with my young children. I saw them develop like few other parents ever do...
... and found, through time, that my vile penchant to dispense masochistic parental hell, failed - not for total wont, but rather through lack of all opportunity.
The kids simply learned to behave.
At worst, they'd whimper, at their smack, back hand a tear, and then we'd get on with what we where at, or what we had to do. No voices were ever raised. No more than a stern look, would suffice.
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Yet my youngest still managed to fall overboard!
Twice...
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My Mum & Dad gave me hidings. Dad's love of me, & my siblings was, is and will always be unquestioned. A love as sure as the rising of the next days sun.
I never ever got a hiding I never deserved...
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At (boarding) school I was caned. A lot... There too, I never got a caning I did not deserve. Caning was a part of a rigid honour code. You where not worth anything if you never got caned, OR took your caning?
Got yourself to be caned!
What else possibly could be wrong with you?
Sadly our school's few female teachers did not cane. Their punishments - sulking & detention - were by far & away, simply the cruellest a young boy could endure. Three months later you'd still have old grumple-fuss on your case.
Really. Get a life lady. "I've got important rugby that must be played!"
Although mind you - we had a limp wristed dandy of a teacher, who never knew his hands where his own, who was a poorly repressed/underacting sadist. A vicious little wimp of a man.
Old mincy pie!
He never did the world's gay community proud, and was hated by one and all, boys, young, old, and long since graduated.
The definitive creep.
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I know this is anecdotal; but a few weeks back I buried a good young man. He committed suicide in his early twenties. Blew his head off. Mum & Dad were the exemplar of cotton wool / helicopter parents. The text book case.
Never raised a finger, and the kid was a 'peculiar case' from the get go. Mum was always in the school office...sorting out her boys world of idiosyncrasies. That world of an idiosyncratic child. The boy with that idiosyncratic Mum. A text book mum. The emotive mummy summa cum laude
We live in an age were young boys kill themselves 300% than they immediately did post WWII! I don't think his dad gave the bugger a few days love, a hug, a toss of a ball, or a good time. But it went both ways, dad was a natural dick.
Neither his doctor, his psychologist, his pharmacists, his headmaster, nor sadly a representative of the giant pharmaceutical company that had researched their vaunted elixir & profited from his pricey scripts of ongoing Zoloft, made that decent point of coming to his funeral.
Their empathy? None.
Nor did the cognitive science psychologist(s) whose erudite PhD paper(s) championed the new world of cotton & chemical parenting.
They never showed...
When ultimately that poor young lad finally put a stop to it all.
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"Hormesis" is what we have forgotten.
Small regular asymmetrical risk... to prepare kids for the BIG stresses that will inevitably be assume as an adult.
And virtuous mum's & dad's say proudly, "WEEEE don't smack OUR kids".
And that is fine. All good...
But I can't help often wonder, is it because they do not want to, OR whether is is because they are just too lax & useless to do so.
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