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I Hope White Parents Are Tougher in Real Life Than on TV
Show me a Black parent who would suffer bratty kids so kindly
Spare the rod, spoil the child? Sometimes I wonder.
I turned 50 years old this year, so I’m from the era when a smack across the face — or a belt on the butt — wouldn’t result in a visit from child protective services. I’m not sure if “spare the rod, spoil the child” was the parenting mantra in my home growing up, but sometimes I thought my folks’ discipline style felt borderline sadistic. Thankfully, being that I was the youngest of four children, they were probably too exhausted to give me the brunt of it.
It’s been at least four decades since I was spanked or hit, so I remember the physical characteristics of the belt more readily than the pain it inflicted. Meanwhile, I can recall thinking that I’d never hit my kids, every time I felt its sting. (At the time, I probably secretly knew I’d never have kids.) Now, when I look back at my folks’ brand of discipline, I get it.
I appreciate that my mother and father never confused parenting with friendship.
I’ve never condoned any form of corporal punishment; I once refused to let my seventh-grade math teacher “paddle” me for talking in class, so…
