Spare the belt, spoil the child?

Most people over the age of thirty have vivid memories of some form of corporeal punishment inflicted upon them by their parents during childhood.

In our house, the instrument of choice was the belt. But it was also much more than that.

If my brother or I stepped seriously out of line, we were ordered to go immediately to our parents’ closet and retrieve a belt. Once the belt had been delivered, we were made to bend over and succumb to an appropriate number of lashes, depending upon the severity of our infraction.

Of course, the worst part of this punishment was "The Walk" -- the journey to and from the closet. It amounted to an effective form of psychological torture, right up there with the time I informed my little brother he was adopted after previously replacing his birth certificate with homemade adoption papers.

So, after considerable practice, I developed the "medium slow" walk, meaning slow enough to buy some time in hopes that an interruption (the phone, the doorbell, the dog crapping on the carpet) might delay, and hopefully lessen the impact of, the inevitable. But not so slow as to increase the offended parent’s wrath.

I can remember a neighbor stopping by while I was on The Walk, then staying for more than an hour. Afterward, my mother decided to forgo the belt entirely, grounding me for the weekend instead. I felt so indebted to this neighbor, I vowed never again to egg her house on Devil’s Night.

Of course, I tried other tricks to lessen the severity of the belt. Especially if the parent giving the marching order was my heavy-handed father.

One evening I became distracted by a television show and forgot I had started running the bath. After it flooded both the bathroom and hallway, my father discovered the transgression and nearly blew a gasket (as well as a valve, seal and piston).

Knowing I was likely to receive a record number of lashes, I went to the closet and, eschewing the available selection of leather belts, picked out an especially nice-looking tie. Paisley, if I’m not mistaken.

Well, my father failed to see the humor in my selection. It was the first and only time he used a wet towel to dispense punishment. Afterward, I wished I had eschewed the comedy.

Following another screw up, I pulled out the belt from a terry-cloth bathrobe hanging in the closet. Of course, the belt was also terry-cloth.

Upon handing it to my mother, she burst into a series of uncontrollable guffaws. Once she had composed herself, she decided to let me off with nothing more than a slap on the wrist (literally). She also informed me that if I ever returned with the belt from her bathrobe again, she’d turn my case over to my father.

Shortly after meeting the woman who would eventually become my wife, we compared notes regarding our respective childhoods. When I told her about The Walk and the belt, she laughed.

Turns out, she was forced to retrieve a red slipper from her parents’ closet when she incurred their wrath. The red slipper had a hard rubber sole, so it quickly became a feared form of punishment in her house.

And then there was the pungent smell of the thing -- a mixture of dead toe skin, toe boogers and foot sweat -- something she claims she can still vividly recall to this day.

Still, like most people I know, my wife and I turned out okay in spite of (or, possibly, because of) the corporeal punishment we endured as children.

Which makes me wonder about how we are raising our two boys.

We agreed early on that we would forgo physical punishment, instead employing timeouts and the denial of privileges to deter undesirable behavior. It seems to be the preferred method of discipline in today’s society.

Yet, I often wonder how effective it truly is.

In fact, recently I had an opportunity to revisit the "old ways" when I caught my oldest son in a lie.

"Go to Mom and Dad’s closet and get me a belt," I ordered in a gruff voice.

"Why?" he inquired somewhat timidly.

"Because it’s time for a good old fashioned spanking with one of my belts."

He looked at me like my head had just separated from my body and begun spinning like a top.

"Go on…Now!"

Slowly, he began The Walk. Confused, scared, wishing he had simply had his Nintendo privileges revoked.

I started to feel really bad -- who was being punished here again?

After what seemed like a half-hour, he came trudging back. Like a prisoner headed for the guillotine.

As he approached, I saw it dangling from his right hand. Recognizable by its length and width, unmistakable in its pattern.

A paisley tie.


Copyright 2003 Marc L. Prey
All rights reserved.