BIG A KNOWS To Beat or Not to Beat, That is the Question
by Anthony Richardson I’ve been active on Fakebook for only
about 18 months. And in that time I’ve been bombarded with several very disturbing videos that friends have shared of parents “supposedly” disciplining their kids. Some of them occurred out in public, totally embar- rassing these kids – and forever trauma- tizing them. And pre- dictably, based on the comments, most peo- ple in their late 40’s and older seem to think this a necessary process to develop your kids into pro- ductive citizens. A lot of them go on to say things like – “this is why kids are so disre- spectful today – be- cause they don’t get their butt whopped.” But I don’t agree. And trust me I grew up getting my butt whopped. A lot.
Better yet, let me rephrase that. Like
most of my friends in the early 1970’s I grew up gettin’ butt-necked ass whoppin’s – severe beatings. My mother’s weapon of choice was a leather belt or a switch that I had to go fetch myself. But I knew friends of mine who were beaten with electrical extension cords, clothes lines, pieces of water hose, razor straps, or anything their parents could grab at the time to inflict the most pain on them as possible.
And lest I forget, the infamous Hot Wheels Track – I think I got a couple Hot Wheel slicks myself. Now, of course, this was all under the guise of disciplining their kids, teaching them right from wrong, and raising them the right way. Hell, I took so many beatin’s from my
mother, I couldn’t begin to count how many. And mainly for things that are as common to childhood as skinned knees and a stuffy nose: disobeying some ridiculous rule she made up, lying, talkin’ back to her, stealin’, etc. Yeah, I went through a phase of stealin’ small amounts of money from family members in the home. Mainly because we were on wel- fare, poor as hell, and most of my friends were from two working-parent homes that could afford to give them a little spending money to go to the movies, arcade, get snacks after school, etc. I know my mother was
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