Kevin Baldeosingh
I once knew a woman who paid her son $100 whenever she wanted him to drop her somewhere. I was absolutely appalled when she told me this. If my mother, or even my aunts, ever offered me money to carry them anywhere, I'd be tempted to ask them if they mad. And I wondered what kind of son would take his mother's money for transport.
But then, on another occasion, the same woman told me how she used to beat her son for peeing in his playpen. He was a tall baby and, by the time he was one year old, was able to climb out of the playpen. "If he coulda do that, he shoulda know not to pee," she explained. And so I realised that there were probably many other similar stories she hadn't told me which would explain why, as a grown man, her son would take taxi fare from her.
I had this view even before I had my own children. And I was always sceptical of adults who complained about their bad children. When girls run away from home, for example, nearly everyone always assumes that they are "hot up." But what are they running away from? I always figure the parents who come to the media for help to find their child are telling less than half of the real story. (But reporters never probe, because they too usually assume that the child just own way.)
"Severely punished children often become runaways as soon as they are old enough," writes American psychologist Thomas Gordon in his book Teaching Children Self Discipline. In this context, it is interesting that you never hear parents coming to the media to look for their runaway sons. Do boys not run away from home? If so, is it because most parents stop beating boy children when they reach puberty and start to get muscles? Or is it because they are glad when the boys leave home?
Gordon also notes that "School dropouts are almost always students who have given up trying, either because they have been physically or psychologically punished by the teacher or because they want to escape the daily punishment of getting failing grades, of being rebuked by their teachers and ridiculed by their classmates."
And I am also sceptical about reports of students attacking teachers. Again, everyone from the Education Minister down always assumes that the child is entirely in the wrong, as though there is absolutely no possibility that the teacher may have in some way provoked the attack. Yet, if policy-makers are serious about creating well-ordered schools, they must surely consider the possible deficiencies of teachers, beyond inappropriate dress.
I am bringing up my daughter and son to demand, and give, reasons for everything. That will probably put them in conflict with some teachers, and at times even with their parents. However, I am quite certain that, when they start to drive, my children will never ask me to pay them for a drop.