When my parents entered the world of the witnesses, I was aged 8 years old.
Dubbism did not sit easily on my young shoulders, and, try as he might, my Dad struggled vainly to inculcate the “New Personality” into his wayward, eldest son. Eventually, the strong diet of guilt and fear made inroads into my head, but, fortunately for me, it never reached my heart. I was left with a personality that, instead of having absorbed the JW teachings had instead, become sort of “striped”.
The result was a boisterous child who liked nothing better to cheek those in authority. I’m still like that!
One of the solutions mooted to my Dad via the elders was the scripture in Proverbs – can’t remember which one – which stated that: “Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a boy, the rod of correction is what will remove it far from him”.
Well, my Dad was a kindly soul, who, while not averse to giving me a light cuff around the side of my head occasionally, could not go through the commanded ritual of spanking my buttocks with a rod – in this case a nylon fish spatula – whatever Mr. Wiseguy in Proverbs commanded.
However, I always knew when my Dad was not kidding, and despite my lack of corporal punishment would back right off when I realised I was pushing too hard. You see, I respected him.
Similarly, when I was at school, corporal punishment was very much in vogue. I was caned by 9 different teachers during my school years, usually for cheek, always 2 or 4 strokes on the palms of both hands. Despite the pain, I was not unduly deterred from answering back and continued to do so at most opportunities. To me a shouting swearing teacher besides himself with rage was not worthy of respect.
One teacher who never ever caned his pupils was Harry Hawks, our maths teacher. A barely audible tiny man, Harry had enormous presence, and it was he who recognised that I had problems with maths and quietly set about teaching me the fractions and decimals that I could not understand even at age 14.
He soon had me into trigonometry and logarithms, eventually I gained respectable passes in examinations in these subjects. Thank you, Harry Hawks!
Of course, when we had children of our own, my wife and I differed as to whether it was OK to smack children. Although now banned in schools, many parents feel that it is right and proper to spank children for wrongdoing, and that withholding this punishment makes for a potential social deviant.
My own feelings are that while an extremely rare light cuff may be just about OK, (my wife says even that is a no-no) the grim, formal “Rod of correction” promulgated in the Bible is hopelessly inappropriate nowadays. I understand that in some countries it is a criminal offence to hit one’s children.
So, should parents be able to hit their kids if they want to? Is the state correct if it forbids this? Is the Bible right when it commands fathers to use the rod on their children?
Englishman.
..... fanaticism masquerading beneath a cloak of reasoned logic.