SPARE THE ROD

Children should be seen and not heard! Spare the rod and spoil the child! These were not only frequent saying by the adults of my childhood, but were put into regular practice. Probably if this rule was used to day, there would be and outcry of disgust from Social Services and human rights activists.

Born in the mid forties, I was very much a child of that era. Not only did parents and guardians regularly discipline their charges by corporal punishment, but neigbours, teachers, shopkeepers and even the local policeman on the beat, took it upon themselves to discipline bad behaviour in local children who were misbehaving.

I was not a delinquent or particularly badly behaved but I many a time received a swat from an adult who had overheard me using bad language or misbehaving. I wouldn’t dare go home and report the incident as I would definitely receive a second swat for causing a problem in the first place.

I honestly didn’t know any child who didn’t have some sort of strap, belt or other form of instrument of corporal punishment kept handy in their home. My grandma’s weapon of choice would be a wet dishcloth. Gran’s dishcloths were usually pieces of old cotton undershirts, as she liked a big cloth to wipe things down with. She would stand at her back door and twirl the wet rag around in a threatening manner. I would stand in the back yard and plead for mercy, which she never gave. If |I made her stand there too long, she would get really angry, so I learned not to argue about it but run as fast as I could between gran and the doorway. As I ran past, the twirling rag would land on the back of my legs, usually just above my knees.

These were the days of girls in short dresses and the snap of the rag would leave it’s mark in a big welt that stung like mad for a while. She only ever had time to deliver one swat but it was always a good one. I would cry and snuffle for a while then get over it as wailing didn’t get any sympathy.

When I moved back to my mom’s house at age eleven, she used a bicycle inner tube for discipline. This was what she used to fill our copper boiler with cold water from the tap in the kitchen sink and it hung, in readiness, in the kitchen. She could get in quite a few lashes as she would back me up to a corner, so escape was less easy.

All of our school teachers had their own form of punishment. Our English teacher used an old tennis shoe which he carried in his briefcase. Our math’s teacher was a dab hand at throwing the black board eraser. I’m surprised he never caused any damage as he threw it at the back of your head if you were not looking at the blackboard. I went home with a goose –egg sized bump several times for turning round to talk to someone behind me.

These were the days of the old fashioned policeman walking his beat. No police cars used for anything but a real crime, but the “bobby” on the beat was a good deterrent as he would be handy with a smack around he head for boys using pea-shooters or throwing stones at buildings, most of those boys grew up to respect the law, even if they resented it.

Kids of my generation honestly never thought of any of this as abuse as it was the normal form of discipline, and most of us grew up to be good citizens with a healthy respect for our elders and those in authority. Even as teenagers we would readily give our seat on the bus to an older person, or assist a less able person to cross the road, or carry groceries, not because we had to but because we had been taught this was the right thing to do.

I brought my children up this way and they all became kind, polite adults who think of other people’s needs before their own. They all got spanked but they also got tucked into bed with a kiss and told they were loved. By today’s standards, not acceptable but I raised them by my standards, I tried to be the best mom I could be, and have no regrets about how I raised them.

For twelve years we owned a motel and RV park and really got to see life as it was for a younger generation. Some families had several noisy, well behaved kids who yelled and fooled about in the pool and the playground, however when mom called, they went for meals, showers and were quiet and respectful of other people.

Other families were a nightmare with their kids running through other people’s camping sites, screaming at one another and their parents, refusing to obey pool rules and frankly being a pain to everyone around them. When I asked parents to control these children, the parent’s attitude was their kids had every right to express themselves and if other people didn’t like the screaming, tough luck.

One early morning I saw some movement in the locked pool and went to investigate. A child of maybe five was sitting in the hot tub, which was bubbling furiously and still mainly covered by a heavy tarp. His brother who was a few years older was playing on the nearby swings. The pool gate was locked so maybe the older boy had assisted the young one to get over the gate.

I made the little guy get out of the hot tub and took him back to his camp site where mom was enjoying her morning coffee and cigarette. I told her the little boy was inside the locked gate, sitting in bubbling water with nobody looking out for him and he could easily have drowned. She was so upset with me for interfering that she packed up and left before even having breakfast. I wonder what she would have done if the child had drowned, probably sued me for negligence.

Frankly I get rather annoyed with people’s attitudes to their ‘rights’, even if that means their trampling over other peoples rights to get what they want. They probably never felt the smart sting of a wet dishcloth behind their bare knees. Too bad!