Crime and appropriate punishment

"If you can't do the time, don't do the crime," is an old and appropriate axiom. In last week's Daily Mail, the Dennis the Menace comic cartoon offered a similar view of the same tenor. It reminded me of my own youthful indiscretions, and the disciplines I earned.

In the cartoon Dennis is standing in his oft-familiar detention location, facing the corner. He still is wearing his backpack from school. His parents are standing a few feet behind, with their heads close together. Dennis' father has his brief case in hand, as if he has just come home from work.

Dennis' mother is holding a note in her hand and whispers to his father, "I didn't need to read the note from his teacher. He gave it to me and headed straight to the corner."

Seeing that simple scene, I was immediately returned to a time well over five decades go. At the time we still lived down on DD Highway. I had been sick for a few days, and had not been able to go to school. That was back in a time before we had so many new immunization shots. I am not sure which of those childhood maladies I was suffering through. It could have been measles, chickenpox, or mumps, all of which I endured.

My father had to go out to do chores, so I was left to my own devices for a time. In a special drawer in the house, I had seen a couple of pistols my father had brought back with him, from his time in Europe during World War II.

One of these was a German Luger; he had taken from a German officer near the end of the war. The other was an Army issue .45 automatic. He had shown them to me a few times, and I was intrigued seeing the way these automatic weapons worked.

I am not sure which pistol I took out of the leather holster first, but when I managed to pull back on the automatic slide of the gun, it locked in place, and I had no idea what to do to release it. I tired everything I could think of, but nothing seemed to work.

I knew my father was going to be really angry with me, and that I was going to get a for certain spanking, when he came back. I actually don't remember too many spankings, but both my parents had at one time or another given me a few swats.

When I finally decided that I could not release the gun slide and return it to its holster, I went and retrieved the lint brush my father had used to administer a prior spanking I had received, owing to some previous bad behavior. When my father came in from the chores, I was waiting there with the lint brush and the cocked pistol, in a similar mindset as Dennis the Menace. I had done the crime, and while not willing, was resigned to my earned punishment.

To my amazement, my father began to smile and actually chuckle. He took the pistol from me and replied, "I guess you learned something today, and I suspect you will never forget it." I could hardly believe my good fortune, and the tears of a few minutes before, were replaced with an overwhelming love of that man. He showed me how to release the gun slide, and helped me to return it to the holster.

In our society, there has been a sentiment for many centuries, that is expressed in the simple Biblical phrase, "spare the rod and spoil the child." Many people take that literally, but I for one believe that my father's lesson that day had a much greater and lasting impact upon me than any spanking could ever have offered.

That was reinforced for me in later years, when I was tasked with raising and disciplining the children in my own home, and the years I spent as a social worker for the state of Missouri.

In the early '80s, I was tasked with investigating hotline referrals regarding child abuse and neglect. It was the most difficult and mentally challenging thing I have ever had to do.

The subject of parental discipline and spanking was often an issue we were asked to investigate. This was a complicated area to try and determine if there had actually been abuse.

Of course there were cases where it was easy to see that a child was definitely being physically abused, but other hotline calls involved just simple spankings, which possibly were being administered too often.

That required an investigation to determine the magnitude of the corporal punishment inflicted in each case. If a person is spanking their child several times during a week for example, when does that become too often, possibly dangerous, and finally ineffective?

Raising children and teaching them the difference between good and bad behavior is perhaps the most difficult task that anyone can ever face. It is far too easy to fall into the frustrating parental trap of using excessive spankings or other physical punishment to try and correct a child.

When and where did my father learn that the lesson he taught me that day, which had a much greater and life long effect upon me than any spanking could have offered?

I will close with one simple example of discipline from my own history. In high school, I had this marvelous Latin teacher, Mrs. Chapman. Besides being a great teacher, she was what I would refer to as a real "Lady."

She had this glance that she could cast your way when you misbehaved. I can assure you that no hooligan who ever received that withering glance was not properly chastised, without even one word being said.

Misbehavior by children will always necessitate some adult discipline response, but when those are actually physical and possibly dangerous, it is justifiably mandated by law, that social services investigate and protect all children.