Don�t Spare The Rod

Tumie Modise | Monday March 7, 2016 15:16

Ultimately, who you are is how you’ll parent. You can only teach what you know. You can only give what you have. You can only build with the tools in your box. If for example you grew up in a home where there were no rules, where you could climb on top of the roof and insult the next door children, chances are, by the time your own children are babies they will be doing the same; climbing on top of the kitchen cabinet, peeing on the auntie. The apple doesn’t usually fall very far like they say.

I turn red whenever I discipline my children in public and some grown up people start making funny disapproving faces. I am not talking about people from far away in ‘cold’ countries. I never pay attention to those because obviously they were baked differently, I am referring to Batswana just like myself, people who I assume were raised to respect authority and not cross set boundaries like the rest of us.

Recently, I went into a store with my toddler. Like any other kid he gets an adrenaline rush whenever he enters a store, especially one with toys. It’s always a mission (impossible) to restrain him, I imagine in his little mind a shop is heaven. But that is normal. Even though I grew up in a village where the only real shop was a fruit market, I am sure I used to get the same rush too. Only I knew not to mess with my parents, and I knew silly stunts were a definite no-no in public.

As I have long discovered many years ago, the only sure way of restraining my child in a shop is to pile them up in the shop trolley. That way I get some form of control; they can’t run amok in the store, they can’t go around grabbing and breaking stuff, stuff I can’t even afford to pay for. Like the time my boy broke an Irish coffee jar at Choppies Hyper store. I flatly refused to pay for the broken coffee, because what business did they have placing P80 per jar of coffees so carelessly in the store, on the aisle, even for promotional purposes? I had a strong case. So on this occasion, a month ago, I was again at some store with the boy. After several attempts by him at grabbing stuff as we moved in between the shop aisles, we finally reached the till. It was on the third week of the month, that terrible week where trolleys lie idle in shops because very few people will need them, that same week where it’s not uncommon to see someone paying for one tomato at the till and producing coins to pay for it. Most of us go through that once in a while. Just as I was about to pay for the items, the boy reached for an Easter chocolate egg on the till and in a split of a second, before I could even scream ‘stop’, the over-prized chocolate was in his mouth! Why do they place them there anyway? Now I was in trouble, I had no extra cash on me to pay for the item. The only option I had was to reverse the sale of one item on the trolley, much to the annoyance of the people queuing up behind me. As the cashier was reversing the transaction, I smacked the boy. The smack fitted the severity of the offence, even his age. He didn’t even blink, he was too busy enjoying his treat. Then to my horror, the adults screamed! I should have smacked them too.

Here is the thing with parenting; as a parent you just do your best to mould your children, you want them to turn out right, you want them to be responsible citizens, you want to be proud of them in a few years time. To those that have never been to birthing wards, contrary to popular belief, children are not born with instruction manuals hanging out of their mouths. Once they arrive, as a parent you have to figure out everything, every single aspect about their lives. Whatever they turn out to be, you get the credit, be it good or bad. So it’s very annoying, even disrespectful when you only try to do your best, then strangers think they know what is best for YOUR children. The same strangers who will flood social media with pictures of your child on shackles the following day when he’s caught shop lifting.