I feel I disagree with the quote “Spare the rod and spoil the child”. I don’t think it works for all cases, sometimes not sparing the rod drives you and your child apart and I have a good reason for saying that.
Its safe to say that the relationship I had with my dad while growing up wasn’t exactly the best father and son relationship that I wanted. And this wasn’t because my dad wasn’t always around or any of that usual stuff, it was something entirely different.
You see my dad was a disciplinarian and I made of the word “was” because he later stopped to be one after he noticed how much damage the whole thing was beginning to do to us, his children. Every one in the street knew my dad wasn’t someone to be messed with. He is a disciplined man and would never be found in a place where he shouldn’t be.
My dad trained us without sparing the rod. As a matter of fact, he became best friends with the rod. Dad never hesitated in whooping us whenever we did something wrong and trust me, all of that did help shape me into the well disciplined man I am today but that also strained our (my dad and I) relationship.
We became scared of him and we were very careful of the things we said whenever we were around him. One slip of the tongue and you’re already dancing to the tone of his cane. My mom on the other hand was the complete opposite. There were times when my mom wouldn’t even lift her hand against us in a year. So we became much more closer to our mom than our dad. We sat with her, told her stuff and when my dad noticed how badly his method of training had shifted us away from him, he tried to make amends.
My dad had called a family meeting and threatened to deal with anyone who goes to my mom to ask her to help us tell our dad what we should tell him ourselves. He had said this after he noticed that we were so scared of him, that we couldn’t even bring ourselves to tell him about paying our school fees, we would instead go to our mom and then tell her to help us tell our dad.
And it’s funny how the only way he thought about solving the situation was by threatening us. And though it worked, he knew that for us to fully be comfortable around him, he had to say goodbye to the rod and he did. My dad stopped hitting and instead resorted to giving us fasting instead whenever we messed up. Sometimes he would ask us not to eat for a whole day and though that punishment was also harsh, our fear for our father reduced so much that as we grew, we became closer and more closer to him.
Now, we’re all comfortable around him and I feel this wouldn’t have been possible if he didn’t see that he had to spare the rod.
