Where are those parents? Remember that look?
Dear Editor,
Sitting at home a lady and her son were walking up the road, when I heard her tell the boy, “I don’t wan’ no child of mine following other children.”
When I heard “following other children” it took me back to my childhood days. “Following other children” has become “peer pressure,” “gang forming,” “guilty by association,” etc.
Many years ago my father told me this story in order to explain me why I should not follow other children: As a sailor for the LAGO he visited many countries and did not have to post anything home because he brought it home with him. At that time already there were Customs and often times the sailors tried to avoid Customs.
One day a fellow seaman, who did not know that my uncle, also a sailor, was my father’s brother, told my father that my uncle had refused to help him bring home something without going through Customs. In order to get in my father’s graces, who had stuff of his own to bring home and who had used that as an excuse not to accept the request, he told my father that he did not know what is wrong with Pete (my uncle) because “Pete never like to help people.” My father answered him, “Maybe the fact that nothing is wrong with him, is what is wrong with him.”
He would not tell me who that person was because I was a child and children had nothing in big people’s business. And then I got another one of his lessons in being honest and fair, which as usual would end up with: “There is nothing wrong with being different. It makes you strong .”
My mother who, because my father sailed and she had to contend with 11 boys and three girls, also had hers . “I don’t want to see nothing in this house that I did not send you for.” She would say, “‘NO’ is one of the most safest and thoughtful words in life. There is no one on this earth who does not stop to think after you tell him ‘NO.’ When you learn to say and accept ‘NO’ you will never hear a prison door close behind you.”
As a child you thought that that was rigid, and then years after being on the force she would jokingly tell me that I was ungrateful, but would never say why. All she would say when I asked her why, is, “You’s a good policeman, right?” And then one day when I insisted from my father to tell me, he smiled and said, “You never thanked her for all the licks she gave you to straighten you out.”
What is the average age for the people in prisons.? I was told in the late 20s. So if we continue to talk about the discipline we got from the older folks, especially that look, and if the prison is filled with young people, then why is beating your children worse than not beating them ? What percentage of the world population are believers? Why are all of these modern theories on disciplining children more acceptable than Proverbs 13:24? Are there any statistics to compare “Old school life” to this modern cell phone era in which one cannot spell a simple word “believe” and the word “love,” which has become the symbol of a heart.
If it said that children grow up and become what they see and not what they hear, is that an indictment for the parents? So when I heard “Following other children” I asked myself, “Where are those parents?”
Those of you who know that look, try it, it might make your children smile years from now.
Russell A. Simmons
