Cut with a comment, not a cane
I ’VE been following, with keen interest, the mooted amendments to the Children’s Act which might culminate in the outlawing of spanking of children in the home. I am fascinated by how passionate people are about their right to bliksem their children.
In my other life, I am a radio talkshow host and I could not help but be thoroughly amused at the raised emotions that the utterances of Social Development Minister Bathabile Dlamini about this precipitated. You would have sworn she had suggested an absurdity of the magnitude of taking away the right of citizens to be amorous with their spouses.
Let me state at the outset that I am ambivalent about the whole matter. Yes, I know; that’s just fancy talk for “I’m as confused as a chameleon crawling on one of Patrice Motsepe’s Technicolor shirts”.
On one hand, I do believe that a spanking is a useful tool in the holistic basket of child rearing. I believe it serves to give the idle threats we throw our offspring’s way some gravity. “Clean up this mess now!” is a pretty useless instruction unless there is an “or else . . .” hovering ominously in the room.
My dad had to whip me just once in my entire life. I was seven. That solitary beating has served him very well for the past 34 years. To this day, a slight sternness in his voice makes me stand to attention. On the other hand, it bothers me that 200 000 years into our cultural evolution as a species, we haven’t found more elegant ways to modify our children’s behaviour besides donnering them into the middle of September.
Did I hear someone say, but we have found more elegant ways to discipline our children? (Snorts dismissively.) Well, let’s see. I hope you’re not talking about that pointless naughty corner nonsense. It works in patches. With my second-born eight-yearold it worked like a charm because he’s a sensitive child. Enter the five-year-old last born. I once collapsed in a fit of laughter when he was three and Mrs N told him to go to the naughty corner. His response: “No, you are the naughty one! You go to the naughty corner!”
After she finished wiping the tears of laughter from her eyes, she tried to continue with her “discipline” but the momentum was lost and the child was continuing on his mission to destroy our house. Never mind that when he does comply and go to the corner, he will sit there defiantly, singing Paul McCartney’s We all stand together.
What other methods have we devised then? Oh yes, the whole “talk to your child” approach made popular by magazine psychologists. I must admit this works 90% of the time, but it has its limitations.
The eight-year-old is a fussy eater who comes home with both his lunchboxes hardly touched. His school after-care minder, Mrs McCallum, tried to have a stern word with him about the fact that he hadn’t had his afternoon snack.
“Look at this lunchbox and how great this food looks. Your mom clearly made this with love.” The response? “Actually, she didn’t make this. She bought it from Woolies.” She tried valiantly to stop herself but stood no chance. She giggled for a good 10 seconds before she could compose herself sufficiently to continue berating him. But once again, the momentum had been lost.
If you think I’m making a case for the retention of smacking kids around, slap yourself on the back of your head, you silly person. The punishment should fit the crime, yes? So, if you give your kid one smack on the bottom for refusing to eat his Jungle Oats and three smacks for throwing rocks into the neighbours’ pool, what about bigger crimes? Our younger son once told his brother: “I bet you’re too scared to smash the TV like Tom and Jerry are doing, scaredy-cat.” So the older one grabbed a broom shaft and proceeded to smash the 42-inch TV screen because, hey, he’s no scaredy-cat. I now invite you to suggest an appropriate physical punishment that does not involve roundhouse kicking him on the throat for that one.
So, do I have it all figured out then? Actually, yes. Let me tell you what my gran taught me — there is no better way to modify human behaviour than by mockery and ridicule. It works better than any caning or talking ever will. I remember how Mr Mtshali, my Standard 5 teacher, once made a boy who’d stolen carrots from the school garden wear an A3 sheet with the words isela lezaqathi (carrot thief) on his back for three days as punishment, and how nobody ever stole carrots again.
Little boys, in general, have a weird aversion to wiping their bottoms properly. Not my boys, though, after I threatened to send them to school with an A3 sheet stapled to their backs that read, “Here goes Can’t-Wipe-His-Bottom.”
Thank me later for that one.