I’m not into telling parents how to parent their child. My hope is whatever discipline they subscribe to their child is what they know is most effective for them. I know that’s not always the case, but it’s my hope. In this digital age, children who have the privilege of an electronic device are likely going to correct themselves with the removal of the device. It’s crazy to say this is where we are in history.
This is just my opinion, but we have to remember there is no rule book to parenting. Everyone has their opinions, but there’s no 1 single way to effectively parent. We do what we know or what we think is right. Our trauma will either change the way we respond or influence how we do so.
Lastly, I got beatings when I was younger. I dreaded my mom pulling out her infamous black belt. However, from what I’m able to recall, I deserved it every time. One event that stands out was I was talking back to my 1st grade teacher. My family was in town and I told her, “my auntie and cousins are in time so my mom isn’t going to do anything”. Boyyyyyyyyyy! She hit me with the sneak attack. I was sitting in the living room with my cousins watching tv when my mom pulled up with belt in hand. She led off saying, “oh, so I won’t whoop you because your family’s here?” and she beat my ass right in front of them. I was physically hurt, but more so embarrassed. I went to school the next day and had to apologize to my teacher. My friends were lookin at me like, “oh, you different today? Thought you was bad??” Listen, I was the most well behaved student in class, and at the end of the day I asked the teacher to send me home with a note saying how great I did lol.
Another quick story - when I was in middle school, I was with my shorty and the squad. I was sitting on some stairs and told my girl to come closer. She leaned down and I went under her shirt and started sucking her titties right in front of the crew - she lives directly across the street and had this baggy shirt on so no once could see, but they all knew what I was doing. Shit was normal so the homies didn’t make a deal of it. Her step-mom was on the way home and happened to pull up because my girl wasn’t supposed to be outside because she didn’t go to school that day. When she pulled up, I hurried up and came up from under her shirt and she seen us. You could see the fire in her eyes. All she said was, “get in the house”. The moment she left to pull into the driveway, we scattered like someone was about to spray the block. She had shorty call my house and my mom picked up and told her everything. By the time I got home, I seen my mom on the porch contemplating the ways she was gonna fuck me up lol. I’ll tell you this, due to that beating, I never got busy with a shorty until a month or two after my 18th birthday. That beating was stuff of legend. Swore she hit me with the Shoryuken and Kamehameha. Straight nasty work. I didn’t talk to her for months. What’s fucked is she ended up getting with the homie - he was there when we got caught up. I held that shit in my heart for years, and when I got older, my first bust down was her best friend. She had the biggest cheeks in the whole district. I just stopped fucking her like 7 years ago for an Asian with even bigger yams. I don’t take disrespect lightly lmao.
In both cases, that beating worked. My mom knew what kind of child I was and did what she knew would work best. Of course I hung around gangs and ran around the streets, but nothing I could get pinned for - just typical growing up shit. She’s why I always used my common sense and could differentiate right from wrong.
When my mom passed, I was barely an adult. It took me a long time to figure shit out without her, but I always defaulted back to the lessons learned as my North Star. It took a while to get through the PTSD and depression from losing her, but I have 2 master degrees (I’m a teacher), own a house, and have a son of my own who I only ever have to say “I’m disappointed” for him to breakdown and reevaluate his whole life. This all by 37. For a Black boy growing up in poverty, without parents, that’s special.
So, I can’t judge anyone for how they discipline their child. I just hope that whatever route they choose, they learn from it in order to better their child and themself.
