After an active youth filled with ambitions of professional sport and a fast paced career as a medical practitioner my dear mother finally fell prey to her maternal instinct, the downfall of many a woman, and had a beautiful baby girl.
A more honest choice of words would probably be that she got knocked up and ended up with me, but that takes the romance out of a good story doesn't it? Well, what she did get for sure was a bright pink baby with blue lips and a lung or two full of fluid that came out far too early. Well, that and the bold accusation from my chronically misguided father that no gene of his could possibly have produced a child so 'fair-skinned'. An ugly specimen though I might have been, scrawny and bruised from lying too long in the incubator, my mother took me home and resolved to turn me into 'anything' but my fathers daughter. When she eventually returned to the maternity wards to have her second child, she had the whole parenting thing down.
As I draw nearer to having to make individual decisions as to my own prospects as a potential caregiver/homemaker, I find myself wondering, though quite discreetly because the last thing I need is another 'I-told-you-so-mother-knows-best' sort of lecture, how on earth my mother managed to yield anything less than a household full of pimps and prostitutes, and the occasional serial killer. I'm a great believer in giving credit where credit is due, and I must say that with the hands of a seasoned volley ball player my mother could slap any stupid child, of which I equal four, into tomorrow and send yesterday off to find them. If 'spare the rod spoil the child', ever was an accurate outline of the process of child rearing then my mother wasn't about to end up with any spoilt children.
Whenever I did something wrong, or worse still if I had influenced my little sister into doing something wrong, I would go into my mothers bedroom, search frantically for her brown leather belt and place it strategically and conspicuously in a place easily within her view, with the aim of saving myself the acute embarrassment of having to run over to the neighbours and explaining to them, in a voice animated by terror, that I needed to borrow a leather belt because I had fed my two year old sister a bowl of raw potatoes and that my mother was considering the necessity of punishing me as soon as she got back from the Emergency Room with the baby.
Even now as a fully-grown woman I cannot walk past a tannery without breaking into a cold sweat as the smell of hot leather ignites in me the flames of memory. My mother established her unquestionable authority over us in the old fashioned way- by use of anything with the ability to cut through the air making a sound that from up close is reminiscent of thunder on a dark night. Respect though, for authority or otherwise, I realize now is something quite distinct from fear and though we were ever fearful of rousing mother's wrath and thus for the most part did strive to avoid committing obvious acts of subordination, what respect we had for her was not based on what power and threat she possessed through her hands and her leather belt.
I don't think I could ever strike a child; this even though I have dealt with children who I would quickly have provided back entrance passes to the VIP lounges of hell. so I appreciate the occasional necessity of such extreme intervention. I know however that if I ever laid a hand on any one of them the most likely result would be for me, rather than them, to burst into tears and have to hide in a corner for three hours before bath time. Even then, and although I disagree with my mother's methods, my contrary approach in restraining from physical expression is practiced for the very same effect as hers was designed. Just as she had hoped her belt would earn her our respect, I hope the devil's children will appreciate that I have the ability to whip, pinch and squeeze; and respect me simply because I do not do so. The child is effectively blackmailed into relying upon the promise of violence or the conscious demonstration of restraint, as a pivot from which they can draw a sense of the prevailing hierarchy and learn who exactly rocks the cradle. My mother and I, in trying to earn respect through the methods in question create more a feeling of fear than a true sense of what is right and what is wrong.
This is evident: my sister and I each stretch out a full five feet nine inches these days and my mother, when she is lucid, would not dare to lay a hand on either of us simply because it would not be a practical means to any desirable end. From whence then would her authority be drawn seeing as the element of fear is excluded? Often she works herself into a rant while my sister and I watch, giggles brewing, bubbling and bursting from our throats in open mockery of her belt-less attempts at discipline. Respect her though we do, and though she seems not to realize it, she has in her hands the card to end all games. Not a thousand belts or a million pairs of scissors pointed at my beautiful black curls could ever have terrified me more than the day my mother, in a voice crisp and eerily calm, uttered in frustration the words no child really ever wants to hear: "Enda ukamtafute mamako" Go and find your mother. As I walked towards the door, on what coincidentally was a desperately dark, cloudy evening, with my rag doll, Jemima, tucked under my arm in one final act of half hearted defiance, tears streamed down my face like no amount of shouting or number of belts had ever before prompted. Walking away from the only mother I could be sure I had, I learnt that she was not dispensable, that she could not and would not be taken for granted and that if I wasn't good she might just go out and 'collect' another child; one that would make her happy. In that moment, respect descended upon me like pure cholesterol coating the very arteries that fed my heart and therein anchoring, my mother.
My mother still thinks that she is the authority figure in my life because I have a mark on my wrist where the leather belt landed and snagged, tearing away a strip of my soft brown skin. I know that my respect for her is based on the fact that she could easily have chosen not to have me, or keep me, and that she tolerates me to this day is nothing short of a miracle. Discipline is the controlled behaviour that results from training people to obey rules and having them understand the consequences of not behaving in the required manner. It refers to the manner in which we conduct ourselves in our interactions within society. When we show that we are disciplined it means not that we had it battered into us when we were four years old, but that we are respectful of those in our immediate environment and who are affected by our actions. I may never hit a child but I am well aware that my pacifist cowardice has an equally adverse effect on their forming the behaviour that they might later come to perceive as acceptable. They must learn that social interaction is essential and that within the same context certain behaviour is below par. As well they must learn especially that there is a pecking order of obedience which they are a part of and that they rely upon for their very survival.
Trackback(0)
 |
TrackBack URI for this entry
Subscribe to this comment's feed
Show/Hide comments
Show/Hide comment form
There has been and will always be debate on the right way of teaching and disciplining a child.
Like you, and mind you I'm a teacher, too, and have met the cute devil's children you refer to, I cannot bring myself to lift up a belt or better yet a bamboo stick against a child.
I feel, though I am yet to find the fool proof way of doing it, that lessons can be taught by appealing to a child's intelligence and natural development.
The trouble is as any teacher, parent and caregiver has already found out, we ourselves have our own flaws and more than likely confuse the child in our endevors to discipline.
The day I told a child that lying is wrong and then promptly lied to the person on the other side of the mobile phone line and with a straight face that I was in a matatu when the truth was that I was still trying to figure out which shoes to wear, well what did I teach that child?
Yes, we are going to be talking about the rod for a while.At least in Kenya we are.
In the meantime, I can only empathize with you Akitelek because I am still tempted to lay my best brown leather belt for my mother to use on me when I find that I have hurt her feelings. I don't. But you know that, don't you?