| In my childhood, smacking was not done with love or | | | | Britain as a young adult: never to smack my kids, |
| compassion for the child, but in anger and resentment. | | | | always to explain my actions to them and to punish |
| Children somehow paid for the parent's frustration with | | | | them by withholding things they liked. |
| life and lack of parenting skills by being first in the line | | | | Home Ethos Which Worked |
| of fire. I remember at 15 years old admiring the son of | | | | I had a simple philosophy with my children, which went |
| the owner of the local cinema and felt very pleased | | | | something like this: We all have a role to play in the |
| when he finally noticed me and said hello one day. I | | | | family which is crucial for our success. If I am not doing |
| shyly answered back with a big smile and stopped to | | | | my role (which at the time was keeping the |
| gossip. What I did not know was that my mother had | | | | homestead) they wouldn't be looked after. If their |
| passed by on the bus and saw me chatting and was | | | | father wasn't doing his role of being the breadwinner, |
| waiting for me when I got home with a thick tyre strip | | | | we couldn't eat. Their role was simply to keep their |
| at the ready. I was beaten to a pulp. I could hardly walk | | | | space tidy, make independent decisions, not follow the |
| to school the next day, just for saying hi to a boy on | | | | crowd, and perform brilliantly at school. If they failed to |
| my way from school. My mother was a very loving | | | | perform, they could not have their 'pay' which was |
| woman in other ways, who would have given her life | | | | being allowed out with friends, or having the things they |
| for us. Her life revolved totally around us, sacrificing her | | | | valued. It worked fantastically well except for the day |
| needs many times, especially after my father died, so | | | | my daughter of 9 years was sent upstairs to her |
| we could eat. Yet she was so willing to chastise us at | | | | room 'with no dinner' for a misdemeanor. She stood at |
| every turn, which made no sense at home but fitted | | | | the bottom of the stairs, looked at me defiantly and |
| into the wider society perfectly. | | | | shouted: " I didn't want your poxy food, anyway" and |
| Jamaican culture was a controlling one and parents | | | | scuttled upstairs quickly before I could react! |
| had carte blanche authority to do what they liked. | | | | I never once used violence on my children and they |
| Disciplining the child came first before praise, hugs or | | | | are now great achieving, warm human beings who |
| value. But beatings were not always deliberate acts of | | | | loved to bring their friends home to meet us. My own |
| cruelty. They were hand-me-down parenting of the | | | | upbringing would have seemed so alien to them. So, I |
| worst kind stemming from similar actions to our | | | | am not for corporal punishment at all, though I |
| parents that, in the absence of knowledge and | | | | recognise that some parents would need some |
| education, were regarded as the 'best way' to bring up | | | | awareness of the alternatives before they relinquish |
| children. So we grew up in tremendous fear and | | | | the right to smack. With greater education in her later |
| hostility. Yet, despite this violence-ridden environment, it | | | | adult life, my sister also stopped smacking her children |
| was still very shocking to us when my mother | | | | and the younger ones have enjoyed a far different life |
| reached a turning point in the beatings. She whacked | | | | than their mother, their older siblings or I ever had. |
| my sister so hard one day that she knocked out one | | | | I do not agree with one writer who said that smacking |
| of her eyes and blinded her. It had an extremely | | | | was the 'lazy solution'. There is nothing lazy about |
| traumatic effect on the family. My sister, of course, | | | | smacking. It is often a sign of deep frustration in a |
| had to live with that awful consequence for the rest of | | | | parent, a lack of appreciation of the alternatives they |
| her life and, unsurprisingly, passed down the switch to | | | | have and a lack of confidence in being the right kind of |
| her kids as well, beating them unmercifully when they | | | | parent as expected of them. More a pointer to their |
| misbehaved. In view of this unrelenting background of | | | | feelings of impotence at such times than cruelty. There |
| violence, I resolved three things before I emigrated to | | | | but for the grace of God...as they say. |