LITTLE ROCK — My late grandfather often used his leather belt on my father's rear end. And Dad never shied away from liberally applying discipline to my posterior or those of my younger sister and brother.
The three of us, in turn, followed suit by spanking our kids as we deemed such discipline necessary.
Amazingly, not one among us turned out mentally or emotionally disordered, feeling unloved or with low self-esteem. In fact, we understood in adulthood why it sometimes was necessary to ensure our undivided attention and obedience to what they understood was best for us.
How about you? Ever have your fanny paddled? Feeling rejected, violent or unloved today as a result?
In light of the child abuse charges filed against Loscar Rodriguez of Coral Gables, Fla., for allegedly spanking his 8-year-old son over chronic bad grades despite his warnings, I suppose everyone through generations of the Masterson family should be grateful not to have been thrown into prison.
Police say Rodriguez, 30, left bruises on his son's buttocks and upper legs by spanking him with a belt. It seems the boy complained of a sore rear end at school and the rest was history for a father who says he loves his child deeply and spanked him because he deserved to be disciplined.
According to the Miami-Dade County CBS affiliate, a felony aggravated child abuse charge was dropped at Rodriguez's arraignment last week, but he still faces a charge of child abuse with no harm. His son remained in state custody at last report.
My father, who said he loved me and my siblings, never explained squat to me or anyone else about his actions as a parent. He didn't have to in 1959 America. He just got that look in his eye, slipped off his belt and whacked until he felt I understood his expectations. Sometimes those lessons left a bruise or two that quicklyfaded. But the purpose behind those seatwarmers always lingered awhile.
Incidentally, don't anyone fret over indelible bruises to my psyche from those spankings. I'm doing just fine here at 60.
Lest hysterical flamers out there search to get the wrong impression (which usually is about this point in my columns where they begin to misread and feel digestive juices gurgling), no, I do not believe in child abuse, or beating children, or abuse of any form. I believe there are limits to physical discipline beyond which genuine abuse begins to occur.
For instance, striking me with a beltbuckle is abuse. So is striking my back or chest or face instead of my bottom. Like virtually everything in life, effectively disciplining a child is a matter of common sense and mature, loving discretion.
But I firmly believe that every parent in this society should remain free to administer reasonable discipline as he or she believes necessary to deal with the uniquely individual natures and willful states of one's own children.
It wasn't uncommon at Harrison High School back in 1962 for the late teacher Charlie Jenkins to summon boys and girls alike to the front of his classroom for several painful and humiliating licks with his massive wooden paddle. Ole wild-eyed, tussle-haired Charlie would be fired today, featured in cable TV's "breaking news" and eventually sentenced to a year in Cummins if he did the same thing in 2007 America. But heck, we loved the guy.
The fact is that being spanked with a belt or a paddle triggered not a whit of poor self-regard or an urge toward violence against others. I don't know any adult who was spanked as a matter of discipline who is psychically deformed as a result. I certainly never felt I was being undeservedly disciplined because of parental rejection or a lack of love. In fact, I believed just the contrary.
Any effective spanking did, however, teach me, my sister and brother in relatively short order that we neither enjoyed nor looked forward to the sting of a belt. Even worse was a skinny little switch (which I often had to pick) that left red whelps on my bottom and upper rear legs.
So I needed to behave appropriately and obey parental guidance. Such discipline also showed me that my father was present in my life and actually cared about my actions.
It never dawned on me during any of my youthful disciplinary encounters tohave someone summon armed officers, or the state government, to defend me against my father. That would have seemed wrong to a kid from the Ozarks.
But as this is written, we have a Florida father facing a trial over the discipline of his son. I'll wait to hear more details before I form a final opinion, but if itturns out that he spanked on or around the boy's bottom to convince a willfully defiant son to change his ways, I'll likely be remembering my own family's history and not feeling much sympathy for the tax-paid government prosecutor.
Although I understand that some disagree, I'm not alone, either. A poll by a Miami TV station showed that 64 percent of the respondents still spank their children when they feel it is needed.
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Staff columnist Mike Masterson is the former editor of three Arkansas daily newspapers.
Editorial, Pages 13 on 10/30/2007