To beat or not to beat, that is the question!

First thing that springs to mind when I read all these news articles on cruelty towards kids is Russell Peters and his “somebody gonna get hurt real bad” jokes! Growing up in India, all of us have gone through the occasional (and I use that term loosely) whacking. And frankly, I don’t see a way around it! Being a rather difficult kid myself – to the extent of being nick-named ‘tension’ by my uncles, I wonder how my folks would’ve handled things differently. And it worked too - the fear did keep us in line, for sure. Am not saying that we didn’t have our share of fun, didn’t do things that the folks were called to school for, didn’t bunk school for that movie we just had to see etc. etc. etc. Just saying that the fear of getting caught did mean something back in the day, did make us think twice before we did something – it’s a different story that we did it anyway!

Growing up I had the fortune of having an elder sibling who was worse off than I was – basically, the benchmark wasn’t set too high! Problem was that I was brilliant as a kid – topped my class till around the 5th standard. Then began the descent. Well, it wasn’t my fault per se, I just ‘peaked too early’ – listening to sports commentary does have its advantages when you can come up with such lines! So, as I was saying, academically and otherwise, my sis didn’t quite set the bar too high. In comparison, besides the very early phase in life (aka, the ‘tension’ phase), I was a fairly timid and trouble-free child – or so I would like to think. My sis or even my parents might disagree, but, hey, this is my blog and I get to call the shots here :p Bottom line, I didn’t get whacked around that much. I do remember the Mathematics sessions with my dad though – again, that wasn’t really my fault entirely. Now, who the hell needs to know how old Ram and Shyam are based on the facts that Ram is 1/3rd the age of Shyam right now, and would be half his age in 10 years? Those questions were built to get the kids beaten up! I’m sure some sadistic nimrod came up with them just to find another reason to hammer his teenager! I’ll let the ‘if Boat A is moving downstream at 20 km/hr and Boat B is moving upstream at 10 km/hr and they are 50 kms apart, when will they cross each other?’ type of questions pass. Well, simply because Aamir Khan’s life probably depended on some nut-job using that to calculate if Aamir would live in the das-das ki daud in Ghulam. But, yeah, I do remember the wrath of Colonel Puri during those maths sessions. And I’m sure my sis remembers them even more vividly =) But, the point is, we did learn! By the time the exams came, I could find out exactly how old Ram and Shyam were!

What is the solution that a parent has in his/her armoury now? To me, ‘go to your room’ doesn’t qualify as punishment. I mean seriously, with the X-Box, 42” LCD TV, PSP, Wii and the likes, ‘go to your room’ should be more like a reward for something good that you did! I just don’t get it! The Americans are superpowers who possess weapons of mass destruction in their backyard, and they came up with such a lame-ass excuse for punishment? Are these the same people that did those awful things at the Abu Ghraib in Iraq? Now, now…don’t get all agitated. I don’t mean to imply that you should blindfold your kid and pee on him every time he swears, or breaks your favourite vase or something. Am just saying that the Americans could’ve surely come up with something better than ‘go to your room’!

Coming back to Russell Peters and his humble request to the white guy – ‘please, whack your kid once in a while’! It does help the other races around. The Mexicans do it, the blacks sure as hell do it, and the Indians are raised such that they wait for the day to do it to their own. Now imagine the plight of an Indian sitting in New Jersey, with his kid threatening to call the social services on him! What’s he supposed to do? Recession and all aside, I think that’s one of the major reasons why the Indians come back after the early years of their child’s life. When they state the reason for their return as ‘good primary education and the Indian value system’, they aren’t lying. The Indian value system is that they don’t need to deal with the mess of social services to straighten their brat!

And now, school teachers aren’t allowed to touch the kids either! So, with the parents not doing much, and the teachers not being able to use their trusted wooden rulers, the kids are free to wreak havoc all around. Its amazing to see parents around struggling to control their kids, and at the same time trying to tame that inner violent streak from giving way. If you’ve noticed, kids have become fussier, nosier and generally more irritating! I say the occasional whack goes a long way in controlling all that! Don’t be a doormat, I say, a little spanking never hurt anyone! =)

Or better yet, enjoy bachelorhood like I do :p