I almost made a mistake. Ok, actually, I did make a mistake and Greybeard straightened me out. I read a post of his and was moved enough that I thought that I needed to say something. Since I had just wrote a post about great dad’s I just added an addendum to that as a reminder that they’re not all great. GB dropped me a mail and asked me to put it somewhere else. He was right. My recent post about a dad was a celebration of a great man. An honorable man. A loving man. That post doesn’t need to be sullied by this. Thanks again GB.
Pop over to PitchPull and read this post
My Dad used to spank us… regularly. At least it seemed that way. In retrospect it really probably wasn’t all that often. I hated my father for those spankings a couple of times but even then I knew that I deserved every one. Even then I was old enough to know that he was fair.
I’ve mentioned a few times that the old man used to smack us on the back of the head. He did but never before we were big enough to handle it and never hard enough to do more than sting a bit. It woke us up and made us pay attention and it was always when we were doing something supremely and utterly stupid.
As I grew older and saw parents that I respect have to spank children I learned a few things about my own parents. What I thought was anger was mostly theater. It was part of convincing me that my parents were disappointed in my actions. Of course, I realize now that I was never hit in anger. Never with a closed fist. Never with a hard object. Never beat. In fact, there were a few times that I’m sure we didn’t get spanked because dad WAS angry enough to hurt us. There is at least once that I know, without a doubt, that this was the case (Sheriff’s office, long story, probably deserved to be beat, wasn’t). He just found other ways to punish us.
There’s a difference between punishment and abuse. That line gets blurred these days by people who consider any form of corporal punishment abuse. People like that are the same ones that blame the decline of society on religion.
People like the guy described in Greybeard’s post don’t deserve to live.
Here’s wishing that all fathers were as good as the ones that I’ve known.
Good call. GB was right. Your post on your father was an amazing tribute to an amazing man.
I deal with college-age young people these days in my capacity as a public safety officer. There are far too many times when I feel like little more than a glorified babysitter. These future leaders, quite frankly, leave me shaking my head far too often. To say they’re spoiled doesn’t cover it but I don’t know what else to say.
You and I, along with Greybeard and some others that hang around in cyber space together are very lucky.
We had parents that cared enough to discipline us. Like you, I got swatted every so often. Like you, it was never in anger and as I grew older, it became less necessary because I learned something valuable along the way. My parents loved me and wanted what was best for me. The worst punishment I could ever imagine facing was to have them tell me they were disappointed in me.
I’ve lived my life knowing that I will never be half the people they were… but that still leaves me a great deal of room to be a pretty good person.
I wish every child could be so lucky.
cjh
(oh, and btw, I’m adding you to my blogroll)
Thaqnks CJ. Welcome.
To be fair, I pulled a few stunts in college that I wouldn’t think about doing now. I was lucky in that I had a couple of great mentors at that age. I learned from them… slower than I should have probably but I did. The best we can do is to hope that we can pass that along to younger folks.
Put your penis in a warm, wonderful place and you can father a child.
If I were “King of the World”, there’d be mass vasectomies performed.
“Hitler?”
Yeah, if I were KOTW you could call me anything you like, but there’d be a whole lot less beating of two-year-olds going on.
My folks both spanked.
My Dad kicked me once and instantly regretted doing it in anger.
(He didn’t really hurt me.)
Boiled down to the core, how do you determine who should and who shouldn’t? Ask this…
Given the chance, would you WILLINGLY give your life for your kid(s)?
To me, your honest answer to that question determines your qualifications to be a parent.
I’m liking your work more and more TJ.
Thanks.