Is your child afraid of you?

When he considers committing an act that he knows is wrong, does he fear you? Does he know there will be swift and sure consequences?

When I read about the 12-year-old boy who stabbed the cell phone clerk in the neck, I have to wonder how a child so young commits such an act without fear of the law and, above all, without fear of his parents.

I was raised in a family where my mother was the main disciplinarian. My mother believed God created trees so parents could harvest switches. If the department of social services were called to the scene after my mother administered one of her whippings, she might have needed some bail money. Needless to say, when Mother spoke, we obeyed.

My father, on the other hand, rarely administered the switch. My dad was involved with running the farm and less involved with the day-to-day goings on of our large brood. He was a stern man who didn't tolerate "foolishness," and though he didn't discipline us often, I was more afraid of his wrath than I was of my mothers’.

Daddy bent his knees beside the bed each night in prayer, took us all to church and, without being preachy, taught us about the Bible and the difference between right and wrong. He allowed us to have opinions on issues … for a minute. But, when we continued to argue with him on some issue that he knew he needed to correct, he knew how to say, "Be quiet. You need to listen."

And when Daddy said "Be quiet!"… you got quiet.

Many children, these days, don't seem to fear anything.

Some say that fear should not play a part in the raising of children. Some argue that if a child learns to fear his parents, he won’t come to them when he has a problem.

Most older folks learned about fear as young children. We grew up around wood heaters and learned, through fear, not to touch them. We walked barefoot on wood floors and learned not to drag our bare feet. We learned to take care of our few toys and our one pair of shoes, fearing there would be no more for a long while.

We learned to eat what was put before us unless we wanted to be hungry ’til the next meal. The meal in front of us was our "happy meal."

In the old days, if we got into trouble at school, we knew two things. No. 1: We knew our parents were coming home. And No. 2: We knew we were "going to get it" when they got there.

When I was coming up, we were made to work. We carried wood, slopped hogs, shucked corn, picked vegetables, swept and scrubbed floors, washed dishes, washed and hung out clothes and various other household chores. And we were still expected to bring home good grades. My parents didn't seem to care if I hated them … and I sometimes secretly did!

I believe that we, as African American parents, have over corrected in our quest to undo the damage done to us by slavery, racism and poverty. In our desire to make up to ourselves for the things we have been denied, we go too far the other way.

If we had no shoes as children, we want our child to have 20 pairs, and the more expensive the better. If we wore hand-me-downs, we want out children to have better, so we focus on giving them the best.

We rebel against physically disciplining our children, remembering the pain inflicted on us as children when our parents disciplined us. Some even argue that, because our ancestors were beaten as slaves, we should refuse to carry whippings into our homes as we raise our children.

We remember how, as children, we dropped our eyes and were afraid to speak up, so we teach our children to look us in the eye and to say everything they feel.

I believe that we need to go back to incorporating some of the ways our parent and grandparents disciplined into the way we discipline our children today.

Our children need to learn early about consequences -- if you play with fire, you get burned.

Our children need to be made to eat what they have in front of them, and if they refuse, they should not be indulged with snacks and "Happy Meals.”

Our children need to be made to work. And there should be days when they have to work hard ... in the heat, in the cold, in the dirt.

We need to provide appropriate clothing for our sons and daughters and they should be made to wear it.

It’s great to teach our children to speak up, but we also need to teach them to shut up.

We need to go back to the days when "I'm going to tell your parents" meant something.

As African Americans, we can acknowledge that our people have suffered much on our road to freedom and equality, but if we are to save the next generation we cannot afford to act reflexively.

We must rely on the techniques we have seen work in the past, refusing to allow ourselves to believe that we do our children a favor when we shelter them from hard work and consequences. The same things I feared and hated in my parents cause me to love and respect them today. And had it not been for the fear of consequences they instilled in me, my life would likely have been very different.

Yes, we love our children. Yes, we should protect them and give them the best life that we can. But, if we don't teach our children to fear us as parents and to fear the consequences of bad behavior, one day we will likely fear them.
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D. Barbara McWhite grew up in York County, S.C., and lives in Orange Park, Fla., with her husband and cat.
 

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