by FranLl

Created on: May 29, 2010

Growing up in a culture that encouraged corporal punishment has been a confusing ordeal for me. Each generation had a favored tool for spanking. My grandfather had a long thin rod made of rattan wood. My father had his belt with its gleaming metal buckle. My elementary teacher had a thing for pinching her students' ears until it felt like it was going to be ripped off.

As a child, I was always exploring the boundaries of an adult's temper. Of course back then, I was not aware that I was testing them. Some days my general laziness and my short attention span brought on the "wrath of the belt" as I called it. I sometimes forgot my chores when I was wrapped in playing outside our house. Or sometimes I'd forget that I was supposed to be watching my younger sister while my mother did the laundry so accidents would happen. If I ever I got too noisy at class, I would go home with my ears sore and red. When I realized I made mistakes, I would stealthily look for my father's belt and hide it somewhere else. Of course, there were other belts so I'd still get punished somehow. 

It's not that the spanks hurt. They seldom did. My father, as short tempered as he is cannot bring himself to put force in his blows. But blows they were. It was the only way he knew to discipline his children. His father used corporal punishment and so did his father before him. In our culture, children are taught to bow down to adults. We are not to speak when adults are talking, we were not entitled to our opinions because our young minds cannot comprehend the complexities of life in general. So we never understood our mistakes. We just learned to keep out of the way of our father-or sometimes our mother-lest we stoke those tempers.

We learned to be sensitive about our parents mood. We learned to do our chores and stay safe inside the house. We knew when our parents had a tough day at work. We learned to read small nuances in their body language. For example, before my father gets really angry he has a way of staring into space, forehead scrunched and hands held at his back. 

Don't get me wrong, my parents are doting parents. They knew what made us happy. I just think they had corporal punishment in their system far too long. It's the way of life that they were brought up with. 

Times are a changing however. A massive campaign in the media against child abuse has made everyone aware of the fact that corporal punishment can lead to child abuse and is punishable by law. Even

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>